Queen of Spades
by WitchGirl
Summary: Greg has the worst luck. After being drugged, shot at, dealing with irksome coworkers and getting hit by a van, his friends find that he's also involved in an ongoing bombing investigation, and could even be a suspect for a crime he doesn't remember.
1. Murphy's Law

Queen of Spades

**Summary:** Greg thought it was a bad day when he woke up in the middle of the desert covered in blood. But he knew for sure when he called work and found out he's been missing for three days straight.

_**Author's Note:**_ This story was actually just renamed today as its previous title, "Bloody Sunday" became horribly inappropriate. And while I sometimes stick with my somewhat irrelevant working titles (Why, just look at "Slither!"), I figured this title was much more ominous and awesome (and will, eventually, be more relevant than my working title). Anyways, this story I started back in March and then I let it go for a while before I reread it one day and fell in love with it again (and also figured out exactly what I was going to do with it). The thing with a good mystery is, you have to technically write the end before you write the beginning. Well, I didn't do exactly that, but after writing a few things, I did figure out how it was all going to work out. And, if I may say so myself, I think it's quite clever. Anyways, read, review, and be sure that this will have an ending. It's also one of my shorter chapter stories and probably won't exceed ten chapters (just to give you an idea). In the meantime, enjoy chapter one.

**Disclaimer:** CSI belongs to me and only me and you guys are now forbidden from writing or reading anything about it that wasn't written by me lest ye be sued (by me).

**Disclaimer to the Disclaimer:** The above statement is completely, totally, and utterly false.

* * *

Chapter One: Murphy's Law

Even in college, Greg Sanders had never been known to drink more than he could handle. The first and only hangover he ever had was after his first insane night of drinking when he was seventeen and he'd never gone back to that place since. That was why, when he woke up with a pounding headache, he assumed that he and Nick had gone a little overboard when they went out for drinks the night before. His room was bright, which meant the windows must have been open because a burning red light blinded him through his closed lids. Greg moaned and covered his eyes with his forearm as he rolled over on his floor.

The mouth full of dry dirt made him realize that he wasn't on the floor of his apartment like he'd thought. He opened his eyes a crack and realized he wasn't even inside, which would explain why the sun was so hot. Slowly and painfully, he sat up and rubbed his eyes with his hands. He blinked. Something was in his eyes. He tried to wipe it away with his hands but it just made it worse. So he used his sleeve and looked down.

"Jesus!" The exclamation was not uncalled for as he saw his hands, and probably his eyes too, were covered in dry and not-so dry blood. He looked around at his surroundings. He didn't remember falling asleep in the desert. A chill ran up and down his spine as he realized something was very wrong.

Trying to ignore his pounding headache, Greg tried to clean his hands on his jeans before pulling out his cell phone. He glanced at the time and rolled his eyes. 7:00AM. He had missed his shift. Grissom would be pissed. He might as well call in before calling a cab and try to explain.

Greg pulled out his phone and realized he had no signal. _Now_ how was he going to get a cab? He looked around for a road and couldn't find one. It was then that he noticed the tire tracks in the dirt. He followed them, hoping they would lead him to a road, and possibly get a signal to call out.

It was hot, and it was only early morning. However Greg ended up in the middle of the desert, he knew that someone else had to be involved. Was this some cruel joke on Nick's part? If so, Greg would get him back. The blood on him was probably just corn syrup and food coloring to freak him out. Greg passed the time by trying to remember what he and Nick had done the night before and plotting revenge on his friend for ditching him in the Nevada desert.

After twenty minutes of sweating and still no road in sight, Greg decided to check for signal again. He had one bar. One bar was better than nothing, and it also meant he had to be closer to a road. He decided to call the lab first.

The phone only rang twice before he got an answer. The voice was gruff. Tired. "Grissom."

"Hey, Grissom," Greg said looking at his surroundings. "Sorry I missed work, I uh…" Greg tried to find the words. "I overslept."

There was a pause and Greg had to check his signal to make sure the call hadn't been dropped. After a moment, Grissom spoke, sounding confused. "Who is this?"

"Uh… who is _this_?" Greg asked, worried he had the wrong number. "Sorry, I meant to call Gil Grissom I guess I—"

"Greg." He said the name almost as a sigh of relief.

Greg was getting annoyed. "_What_?"

"Where are you?"

Greg looked around. "Uh… can I get back to you on that, boss?"

"Don't bother," said Grissom. "We're tracing you through GPS, stay on the line."

"There's no need to do all that," said Greg, surprised at his diligence. "I was thinking of calling a cab."

"And how would the cab find you if you don't know where you are?" Grissom asked.

"I can figure out where I am," Greg said, defensively. "I was just gonna walk until I found a road. Follow these tire tracks."

"Don't move," Grissom said.

Greg was about to take a step but stopped. "What the hell is this all about anyway, Grissom?" he asked. "I said I was sorry, but you don't need to send someone all the way out here to lecture me in person."

"Are you alright?" Grissom asked, sounding stern.

Greg was caught off guard both by the question and the peculiar manner in which it was asked. Grissom spoke to Greg as though he were an escaped mental patient. "I got the hangover from hell, but other than that I'll survive, thanks for caring." Greg looked down at his blood-stained hands. "Oh, and I want to ask Nick something…"

Grissom muttered something to someone else in the room. "Greg, where have you been?"

"I told you, I overslept," Greg said. "Nick and I went out last night, I guess I had a little too much to drink, and somehow ended up... here… Is Nick there? Can I yell at him?"

Grissom muttered again before speaking directly to Greg. "Greg, you went out with Nick on Sunday."

Greg did not know what to say. "Uh, yeah, isn't it..." He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at the date. "Thursday?" he muttered. He put the phone back to his ear. "Grissom, it's supposed to be _Monday._"

"We know where you are," Grissom said. "Nick and Sara are on their way."

"So where am I?" Greg asked.

"Ten miles west of I15 by Enterprise."

" Enterprise?" Greg looked around. "That's kind of far, isn't it?"

"Just a little," said Grissom. "You said there were tire tracks."

"Yeah," said Greg, looking at his bloodied jeans. A sickening feeling washed over him as he realized it might not be corn syrup after all. "And… Grissom, I think I'm covered in blood. It's all over me, and I don't know why, or if it's mine, or if it's someone else's, or even if it's blood at all, and I don't know how I got covered in it." Greg was wondering if he should panic.

Grissom answered Greg's unasked question. "Greg, calm down. Talk slower. Nick and Sara are coming fully equipped to answer all those questions."

"Great," Greg said. "So I just became part of a crime scene."

"Maybe," said Grissom. "If it is actually blood." Someone spoke to Grissom at the other end and he answered to them. "It's Greg, I just sent Sara and Nick out to get him… I'm _getting_ to it, hold on—Greg?"

"Hm?" Greg replied.

"Ecklie's on my back to work this bombing case. Listen—you have no idea how relieved we are to hear from you. Sit tight, and when Nick and Sara get there tell them everything you told me and anything else you can remember. I gotta go."

And with the click of his cell phone, Greg was alone again. He looked over his shoulder at the rising sun. "So if that way's east…" he said. "That means I've been walking west towards Enterprise."

Greg stopped when all of a sudden something Grissom said rang in his head. So there had been a bombing in Las Vegas in the last three days. What else had he missed? He felt as though he were Rip Van Winkle, asleep for decades. Greg rubbed his eyes and wiped the sweat off his brow. _Damn_ it was hot.

After about an hour of waiting, Greg's thoughts began to get a little discombobulated. Images swam before his eyes. Colored spots dotted his vision. He couldn't hold onto a coherent train of thought. He began thinking in circles. For a moment, he even forgot why he was standing still and started following the tire tracks again.

The wave of nausea caught him completely off guard and Greg quickly spun around and doubled over as whatever contents he had in his stomach resurfaced and spilled out onto the dirt.

Greg suddenly felt very dizzy as he stumbled backwards. Eventually, the heat became overwhelming and he toppled over, unconscious.

* * *

Greg awoke to a splash of cold water on his face. He blinked and saw himself looking up at a very cocky looking Nick. 

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty," Nick said. "You just had a minor heat stroke."

"Is that why I still feel nauseous?" Greg asked.

"We got here just in time," Nick said. "Sara and I saw you lying out there and so we poured some water down your throat and cooled you down as fast as possible."

Greg was panting as he rested in the shade of Nick's Tahoe. "_That's_ why I feel nauseous," Greg said with a moan. "How much water?"

"Not enough to make you sicker than you already are," Nick said. "And frankly, I'm offended that you think I wouldn't know how much to give you."

"What are you guys doing on shift anyway?" Greg said, as he sat up and leaned against the tire of the car. "It's like…" he looked at his watch. "Ten in the morning, shouldn't you guys be done by now?"

"We should," said Nick. "But we've been pretty busy over at the lab."

"So busy that Grissom could spare you guys to come and pick me up?" Greg asked. He scratched his upper arm and for the first time realized he was shirtless. He looked down and realized his shirt wasn't all he was missing. "Whoa! Where are my clothes?"

"Easy, Greggo," Nick said, chuckling. "Your shirt and pants are in the car. I told you, we needed to cool you down, put you in a hyperthermia vest, towels on your head neck and lower torso, you know the drill."

"Why the hell do you have a hyperthermia vest just lying around?" Greg asked, noticing it lying beside him.

Nick shrugged. "Once I dated a nurse and she has this thing with hot and cold—"

"Stop talking right now," Greg said, holding up his hand. "My head hurts too much for kinky sex stories."

"Hey Greg," Sara said, stepping around the side of the Tahoe and holding a swab in one hand and an evidence bag in the other.

"Jesus!" Greg said, standing up quickly. He grabbed the vest and held it in front of him.

Sara smiled at him broadly, and Greg hoped her eyes were closed behind her sunglasses. "Nice boxers," she said casually. "You woke up about a mile east, yeah?"

"Uh… yeah…" Greg said, feeling dizzy again, probably from standing up so fast. He shook his head. "Sara, can I talk to you when I have some clothes on?" he asked, holding onto the side of the car.

Sara held her hands up and turned around. "OK," she said. "There's not much to see anyway."

Greg looked after her in a mixture of umbrage and embarrassment as Nick started chuckling. Greg looked at him. "Please say she didn't see me like this when I was unconscious?"

Nick hesitated. "She didn't see you like that when you were unconscious."

"You're lying," Greg said.

Nick was still laughing as he nodded. "Yes I am."

"Oh, you shut up," Greg snapped as he leaned against the car and slid back to the ground. "Please get me my clothes now."

Shaking his head, Nick opened the car door and brought out Greg's shirt and pants, neatly folded and handed them to him. "Hey, man," he said. "Sorry for saving your life."

Greg grabbed his clothes and began putting on his pants. "So what have I missed in the past three days?"

"A lot," Nick said, suddenly sobering up. "Someone decided to bomb the MGM Grand."

Greg almost dropped his shirt. "You're kidding."

"Nah," said Nick. "Killed about fifty people. Bastard left us some clues, too, and that's why we've been working 'round the clock."

"What kinda clues?" Greg asked as he poked his head out of the neck of his t-shirt.

"Clues like the ones we found on you," Nick answered, changing the subject. "Any idea why you're covered in blood?"

"If I did, do you think I'd be in the middle of the desert suffering the after-effects of a heat stroke?" Greg returned.

"Touché," Nick said.

"Can I come back now?" Sara called from the other side of the car.

"Greg's decent," Nick replied.

"Greg's never decent," Sara said as she rounded the corner of the hood of the car. She still had the evidence bag. "There was an empty syringe at the dump site," Sara told them both, holding up the bag. "Plus a pile of white powder, I'll need to send it to Hodges to figure out what it is, but it looks like shaved limestone."

"Chalk?" Greg said.

Nick looked very confused. "No, that's impossible," Nick said.

Sara shrugged. "It looked identical."

"Identical to what?" Greg asked, looking from Sara to Nick. They were ignoring him as they argued.

"No," said Nick. "I did _not_ leave him at the MGM, Sara, we weren't anywhere _near_ there. I left him at the club, like I've said so many times. What the hell does he have to do with this?"

"He did disappear Sunday night?" Sara said. "The bombing happened Monday morning. Looks like the same guy."

"What would he want with Greg," Nick said. "It doesn't make any sense."

"I just gather the evidence," Sara replied with a shrug. "Look, it might not even be chalk, it could be, I don't know, something else."

Nick shook his head vehemently. "This is seriously messed up."

"Would someone care to fill me in on what you're arguing about?" Greg interrupted.

Nick looked at him. "Greg, do you remember what happened after I left on Sunday?"

"No," Greg said. "I don't remember anything except that we went to a bar and my car broke down. I was complaining about it and then… Nope, sorry, I've got nothing."

"Yeah, we found the car…" Nick walked over to Greg and rolled up his sleeve. "The needle would explain these," he said.

"What is it?" Greg asked, trying to look down at his arm.

"Multiple puncture wounds," Nick replied. "Sara first found them when she took off your shirt."

Greg did a double take. "_You_ took off my shirt?" he said.

Sara shrugged, her face expressionless. "Someone had to strip you while Nick went for the towels and hyper-vest."

"Greg, you don't do drugs," Nick said dubiously.

"I'm flattered at your confidence," Greg replied.

Nick looked over his shoulder at Sara. "Why would a terrorist drug a guy and then leave him in the middle of a desert with his trademark chalk?"

"Just before his bomb goes off in the MGM Grand?" Sara added.

"Greg, your apartment isn't anywhere near the strip," Nick said.

"Hell no," Greg answered.

"And neither was that club," Nick said, shaking his head. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Let's get him back to the station," Sara said. "He can talk to Brass."

* * *

Greg spent most of the morning vehemently repeating his statement that he didn't remember anything. When he was finally released, he ran into Catherine, and the papers she was carrying fell out of her hands. 

"Sorry," Greg said, helping her pick up the papers.

"It's OK, Greg," Catherine said with a sigh. She looked up at him and smiled. "It's just good to have you back. We've been worried about you."

"Because I was missing for three days?" Greg said. "Aw, come on, that's nothing. When I go missing for three _weeks_ is when you should worry."

"I feel like you're not taking this seriously," Catherine said as Greg handed her the papers he collected for her. "You woke up in the middle of a desert covered in blood with no memory of the past three days. I'd be a wreck."

Greg grinned at her. "That's the difference between you and me, Catherine. I don't believe in worry."

"It's not a religion, Greg," Catherine deadpanned, rising to her feet with Greg.

"No," said Greg. "It's a philosophy. Tell me about this MGM bomber."

"Didn't Grissom give you leave?" Catherine asked.

"Nope," said Greg. "You guys are shorthanded and need all the help you can get."

"I suppose that's true…" Catherine started walking down the hall.

Greg called after her. "Wait! You didn't tell me about the case."

Catherine turned and gave him a tired look. "Technically, I can't," she said. "As you're now part of it."

"Bull shit," Greg said with a laugh, but Catherine's face was dead serious. She shrugged.

"Sorry, Greg," she said. "You're going to have to work the other cases if you're going to stay on. Not this one."

"But _everyone's_ working the bomber case," Greg said, annoyed. "Even the day shift."

"Which is why we'll need _you_ more than ever," Catherine called, strolling down the hall. "Just because someone bombs a hotel doesn't mean crime stops altogether."

"This is a hot case!" Greg called after her retreating back. "You can _not_ leave me out in the rain here, Cath!"

She turned the corner and pretended she didn't hear him. Greg hit the wall in frustration. He was still feeling a little woozy, which he thought was strange as recovery from heat stroke didn't take this long normally.

"Look on the bright side," Warrick said from behind as he patted him on the back. "One of the hottest cases of the year, and though you're not working it, you will forever be immortalized as being a part of it."

"I'd rather solve a crime than be a victim of it," Greg muttered.

"Greg, I don't know anyone who'd want to be a victim of a crime," Warrick said. He opened the file in his hand and looked through it. "Now, Ecklie said there's a 419 over on fourth and union—"

"Great," Greg said, taking the file out of Warrick's hand. "When do we go?"

"You," Warrick corrected.

"Yes…" said Greg. "You and me."

"Nah," Warrick said, slowly. "Just you. Mindy is already down there, she needs your help."

"Warrick, who is that?" Greg asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Day shift," Warrick replied. "We're all working together today."

"Fantastic," Greg said, trying not to tear the file up in his hands. "I get gypped because I got a little too drunk last Sunday and now I'm stuck working a scene with some skirt named Mindy. What kind of name is that anyway? Sounds like a ditz."

"Don't let Sara hear you talking that way," Warrick said looking at his watch. "From what I hear, you're all just talk, Sanders."

Greg frowned at Warrick. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"I gotta go," Warrick said with a spark in his eye. "Have fun with Mindy."


	2. Guns and Wheels

_**Author's Note:**_ This chapter was fun. Sorry if it gets a little confusing, I know it moves kind of fast. Hope you enjoy Mindy as much as I do. ;o) You get this now because im bored and you're lucky it was previously uploaded. I've locked myself out of my dorm and am waiting for my roommate to come back with my friend in her room. Lets hope I left my keys in my room.

* * *

Chapter Two: Guns and Wheels

As Greg made his way to the apartment building, he really wished he'd asked Grissom for the day off. He'd had to take public transportation to the scene as his car was still broken down and had gotten a few looks from people on the bus because of his vest and kit. It was only noon and he had already proven to be the favorite victim of Murphy's Law. The police briefed him and he tried hard not to tune them out before he entered the crime scene.

At the sight of the dayshift worker, Greg thought his luck might have actually changed. She was a slender but toned redhead who was squatting down taking photographs of the body. As she stood up Greg tilted his head and smiled confidently as he checked her out. She turned around and caught him red-handed.

"Are all the graveyard workers this rude?" she snapped.

Greg closed his eyes and introduced himself. "Hi, I'm Greg Sand—"

"That's nice," Mindy interrupted, looking at the ceiling in disinterest. "Look, there's an empty pill bottle in the bathroom. Looks like it he choked on them instead of swallowing them, which makes me think it was a murder disguised as suicide and—are you listening to me, Batman?"

Greg blinked. "Batman?" Mindy gestured at his shirt and he looked down to see the Batman logo on it. "Ah, well I borrowed some clothes from a friend because—"

"Not interested," Mindy interrupted. "Get to the bathroom and bag the bottle, I'm almost finished up here."

"That's it?" said Greg. "You just want me to bag the bottle?"

"I can handle everything else," Mindy replied. "I, uh, don't really feel comfortable with a rude night shift worker whose not even in proper uniform contaminating my crime scene."

"Hey listen, Mindy," Greg snapped, "which, by the way, I only know is your name because Warrick told me, thanks for introducing yourself. I'm not a rookie anymore, I know what I'm doing, in fact I'm one of the only people not working the damn MGM bombing case, because Ecklie thinks I can do it, and if he trusts me to do a good job then you can too."

"Good," said Mindy. "Now that you got that out of your system, you can go bag my evidence please, or do I have to do that too?"

Greg waved a finger at her as he opened and closed his mouth, not very sure of what to say, before finally letting out a growl of frustration, turning on his heal, and heading in the direction of the bathroom. He was just muttering about all the things he'd like to do to her as he passed a window and Mindy called out to him.

"Hey Batman—" she began.

Greg spun around and was about to yell "_What?_" when he was interrupted mid-inhale by the shattering of glass and a sting across the back of his shoulders. He jumped forward and arched his back. "Holy—"

"Batman!" Mindy screamed, jumping to her feet. "What the hell did you do now?"

"I didn't do anything!" Greg yelled back at her before looking over his shoulder. "Something bit me."

Mindy ran over to him. "Nothing bit you, you jackass!" she said as she looked at the window. She looked at him in disbelief. "I think you've just been shot."

"Shot?!" Greg said.

"Hold still," Mindy said as he looked at his back. "It just grazed your shoulder blades, you oughtta be fine… The slug should be in the wall over there."

"Why the hell would someone shoot me?" Greg asked her as she went to examine the bullet hole.

"Don't sound too surprised, Batman, I was ready to shoot you myself," Mindy said. "Ah, here it is."

"You've known me ten minutes," Greg said. "You couldn't possibly want to—"

"You underestimate your annoyingness," Mindy replied as she took a picture of the bullet hole before fishing it out and dropping it in an evidence bag. She looked over her shoulder at him. "You know, that might have been the killer," she replied. "We should trace its trajectory. Get on that, would you Batman?"

"Quit calling me Batman!" Greg barked.

Mindy chuckled. "Quit whining and figure out where that bullet came from. I'll snag the bottle from the bathroom. You said you're capable, well prove it."

"What if I wanted to get the bottle from the bathroom?" Greg asked, for the sole purpose of being contrary.

Mindy rolled her eyes. "Listen up, Batman. I'm giving you the chance to figure out who shot at you. Solve your own case. I mean, sure, it's no figuring out who dumped you in the desert kind of case, but it's better than nothing."

"I thought I said to stop calling me—what?" Greg blinked. "How'd you know about that?"

She gave him a quirky smile. "I know who you are, Greg Sanders. I've been working your case."

"Does that mean you've been to my apartment?" Greg asked.

"Yes," Mindy said simply.

"Damn…" Greg muttered, staring at the wall behind her.

"Now get on it," Mindy snapped. "Or I'll tell Ecklie you've been slacking off." And with a flip of her hair she was gone.

"She's still a bitch," Greg muttered, as he looked out the window at the building across from him.

* * *

Mindy was kind enough to give Greg a ride back to the lab after they had both finished up processing the scenes. The shot had come from an empty office in the building across the street. No one could give them a good description of the shooter, although plenty had seen him. The problem was, he wore a suit and tie, just like everyone else in the building, and the gun (Mindy guessed it to be a sniper rifle) had been hidden in his briefcase, so he looked like pretty much like the average businessman who wasn't worth a second glance. 

Greg stared out the window as they drove down the street. "So do you have a last name, or are you trying to be cool like Madonna?"

"No talking," Mindy said. "If I'm going to tolerate your presence for this whole ride, I can do it better if you don't say anything."

"You're a bitch," Greg said.

"And you're a scrawny Norwegian chess freak with a penchant for _Jugs_," Mindy said, with a shrug. Greg stared at her, aghast. She paused before explaining. "I told you, I was at your apartment."

Greg blinked. "OK, that's creepy, never do that again."

"I won't if you shut up," she said in a sing-song voice.

"I hate you so much," Greg sneered.

"I'm glad," she replied.

She pulled up to the precinct, and not a moment too soon. Greg jumped out of the car before it came to a stop. Taking a deep breath he made his way quickly for the lab.

"You gonna get someone to check out your shoulders?" Mindy called after him.

Greg just mimicked her under his breath and didn't reply. His shoulders were stinging madly, but he would be damned if he showed her that. Walking in, he saw Warrick.

"I am never working with her again," he said sternly.

Warrick rolled his eyes. "I know she's a bit of a hardass, Greg, but she's been working straight shifts since Monday filling in for you. Cut her some slack."

"And another thing," Greg said. "Where's Nick? I need another shirt."

Warrick watched Greg storm off down the hall when Mindy entered. She looked after him, then at Warrick. "You just going to let him go like that?" she asked him.

Warrick shrugged. "Eh, he's alright," he said.

"He got shot," Mindy said.

"What?" Warrick exclaimed. "You shot him already?"

"_I_ didn't shoot him, you numbskull," Mindy hissed. "A shooter did. It's nothing big. It grazed the top of his skin, cutting a half pipe across the back of his shoulders. Still, last I checked it totally ripped his shirt and was bleeding through it. Couldn't you see it?"

"Is that why he wants to change shirts again?" Warrick asked.

"Could be," Mindy said. "Also, I gave him a cute new nickname."

"I doubt he thinks it's so cute," Warrick said.

"Well I should run these over to trace," Mindy said, looking at the evidence. "God knows, Greg was no help bringing these in."

"Need a hand?" Warrick offered.

"What, I can't carry my own evidence now?" she snapped.

"Sorry," Warrick said. "Just trying to be polite." She snubbed her nose at him and stocked off. Warrick shrugged.

"Hey Warrick," Sara said as she rounded the corner. She was looking at her shirt which was stained with something. "If anyone's looking for me, tell them I went to take a shower. Hodges spilt some chemicals all over me. He claims it was an accident, but I have my doubts. It was a bunch of different vials so we're not too sure what they are…"

"Sure thing," said Warrick. He turned back to the file in his hand.

"Warrick!" Nick called out, appearing next to him by the front desk. "Have you seen Sara?"

"Shower," Warrick said, absently.

"Why?"

Warrick shrugged. "First of all, she's been working a double shift and probably hasn't had one in a few days, and second of all Hodges spilt crap all over her."

"Did she get the results from the syringe?" Nick asked.

"Dunno," Warrick said. "She seemed pretty preoccupied with the chemical spill."

"I'll go ask Hodges myself then," Nick said with a sigh, and set off in the direction of the lab.

Warrick went back to reviewing the file, one of the women who died in the MGM bombing. He just got past reading her name when Catherine came wheeling around the corner.

"Warrick," she said. "Glad I found you. Got your ballistics results on the bombs."

"I'm glad, I dropped that off hours ago," Warrick replied, a little too sharply.

"Sorry," Catherine said, hearing his frustration. "I've been kind of backed up."

"I know," Warrick said with a sigh. "We all have, I'm sorry." There was a beat. "Oh. Greg got shot."

"Greg got _what_?" Catherine exclaimed, looking horrified.

"Grazed the back of his shoulders," Warrick elaborated. "No big deal."

"No big _deal_?!" Catherine laughed. "Is _no one_ taking his situation seriously?"

"Sure," Warrick said. "But he wasn't even really _shot_, technically speaking."

Catherine rolled her eyes. "Whether he was really shot or not isn't the issue. Don't you think it's a little odd that he disappears for three days and when we finally find him again he gets shot at?"

"Catherine," said Warrick, "I'm so tired, _everything_ seems 'a little odd' to me. I'm beginning to see stars floating around your head."

"You need a break," Catherine noted.

"You're probably the most observant CSI that I have ever met," he replied.

"Sara said they got the results on that syringe they found with Greg," Catherine said.

"She did?" Warrick said. "Nick was asking about that."

"Yeah," said Catherine, sounding a little concerned. "She said something about Rophynol, I don't know, she was talking really fast."

"Rophynol?" Warrick said, baffled. "The date rape drug?"

"Yeah, I don't know, Sara mentioned it in passing, and I was busy looking over your results," Catherine said.

"That dehydrates you worse than alcohol," Warrick thought aloud. "It would explain why Greg suffered heat stroke so fast."

"Hm," said Catherine. "Listen, I'm gonna go show this to Grissom, call me if you need me."

Warrick nodded and they headed out in opposite directions. Somewhere on his way to CODIS, Warrick saw Grissom talking to Wendy.

"Grissom!" Warrick called out as he passed by. "Catherine is looking for you."

Grissom nodded at Warrick in recognition and continued talking to Wendy. Outside the locker room, Warrick saw Nick again. For a second he forgot what he had to tell him, then he remembered.

"Catherine said that Sara found Rophynol in the syringe," he said.

Nick looked surprised. "Really? Well, I guess it's not _that_ unexpected… hallucinations, memory loss, vomiting… It's a pretty easy drug to get a hold of too unfortunately. People make it in basements like ecstasy. But I thought it was taken orally?"

"Nah, there's this concoction in Europe called Darkene which mixes it with alchohol—they inject it right into the blood stream. The effects are stronger and last longer."

"Huh…" Nick nodded.

"You didn't talk to Hodges yet," Warrick deduced.

"I was going to, but then Greg made me find him another shirt. Did you know he was shot?"

"Yeah," said Warrick. "Mindy told me."

"That CSI from dayshift?" Nick asked. "I heard she was a piece of work. Wasn't she working Greg's case with you?"

"She was," Warrick answered.

"Ah, there's Hodges," Nick said, looking over Warrick's shoulder. "Catch you later."

"Bye," Warrick said as Nick jogged away. Warrick began to walk away when he heard a frustrated scream from inside the locker room. The door opened fast and Greg shut it just as quickly as something crashed against it from the other side. He was wearing a brand new shirt. He leaned against the door, his eyes wide.

"Do I want to know what just happened in there?" Warrick asked him.

Greg bit his lip, his eyes still the size of quarters. "Let's just say that Sara and I are even."

"Even for what?" Warrick asked.

A smile slowly crept across Greg's face. "Warrick, my day just went from incredibly crappy to actually not half bad." And with a sigh, Greg walked away, that dopey grin plastered on his face.

Shrugging, Warrick looked at his watch and decided he really needed a lunch break. He made a beeline for the door and stared up into the sunlight to dilate his pupils. He rubbed his eyes and jogged across the street towards the pizzeria. He ordered a medium with mushrooms and garlic and filled his drink at the soda fountain.

A few minutes later, he saw Greg run in and up to the counter, ordering "the usual."

"Hey," Warrick called. "Lunch break?"

Greg laughed at him as he leaned against the counter. "I thought about heading to the trace lab to check on the evidence from the bullet, but then saw Nick talking to Hodges and figured Sara would be heading that way too and right now, it's best I avoid her."

"Whatever you say," Warrick said, sitting down at a table. "I think we could all use a break. I've been reading over this file about one of the bodies recovered from the MGM Grand and I gotta tell you, it's driving me nuts."

"How so?" Greg asked, sliding into the chair across from Warrick.

"Well," Warrick said. "COD wasn't the explosion, first of all. She was pulled out from under a fallen wall, which shielded her from much of the explosion. All the burns and bruises are post-mortem. She died before it all happened."

"Body dump?" Greg asked.

"Possibly," Warrick said. "She had a stab wound in her gut, and her throat was slit. Unfortunately we can't find a murder weapon anywhere. It was probably destroyed in the explosion. So if she _was_ murdered, all the evidence is gone."

"You don't think someone would bomb the MGM Grand and kill fifty people just to cover up one murder, do you?" Greg asked, as the server brought over their pizzas.

"I don't think so," Warrick replied. "I think the murder was unrelated to the bombing. The terrorist contacted the LVPD five minutes before the bomb exploded. LVPD got a Ziplock bag in the mail full of what they thought was cocaine turned out to be chalk."

"Like the chalk at my crime scene…" Greg replied, sounding far away.

"Exactly," said Warrick. "It was all too planned out. Whoever killed the girl just got a lucky break after the explosion."

Greg grabbed the file from Warrick and flipped through the pictures. His brow furrowed in intrigue, almost recognition. Warrick could see the gears spinning in Greg's head. Suddenly, he stood up. "I have to go," he said.

"Greg, are you OK?" Warrick asked, standing too and dropping his pizza slice. "You didn't touch your pizza. Are you sweating?"

"Uh…" Greg said, his eyes darting everywhere. He ran his hand through his hair. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just, I gotta ask Sara something."

"I thought you wanted to avoid her," Warrick replied.

"Yeah," Greg said. "Maybe Nick would be better."

"What did you remember?" Warrick asked.

"I'll catch you later," Greg said, waving at Warrick as he left.

Warrick watched after him as Greg ran across the street and then all of a sudden he flew into the air as a black van drove by and struck him at top speed.

"_Greg!_"

* * *

Sara picked up the shoe she had thrown at Greg's retreating back and put it on. She opened her locker and looked at herself in the mirror as she toweled off her hair and shook her head. She couldn't believe Greg. It wasn't the fact that he had walked in on her that bothered her, it was the fact that he just _stood_ there after realizing his mistake. She glared at her reflection, pretending it was Greg. The way he leered at her like that, the _nerve_ of him! She knew he'd done it on purpose. She brushed her hair back into a ponytail and made her way outside and went to the lab where she saw Nick talking to Hodges. 

"What'd I miss?" she asked.

Hodges sighed. "Nothing you didn't already know. Nick's making me repeat everything I told you."

"Well maybe he wouldn't have to if you hadn't spilled those chemicals," Sara said, casually. "But I'm sorry, Hodges, if you want, I can fill Nick in."

Hodges looked at her a moment and then turned back to Nick, ignoring her. "Rophynol in your syringe here, plus a partial I sent over to Mandy who can't match it, but it's not Greg's. Additionally I ran into Wendy and she said there are still significant traces of it in his blood. Not enough to affect him too much, but enough to tell us he's been drugged for a while."

"Do you think he was drugged for the full three days?" Nick asked.

"Looks like," said Hodges. "I mean, I wouldn't doubt it. With roofies, I mean… those things knock you out."

"How exactly would you know this, Hodges?" Sara inquired innocently.

He glared at her. "I don't have to drug a girl to sleep with me, if that's what you think."

"Let's focus on the task at hand, can we people?" Nick asked.

"It might have kept him under for three days," Hodges continued, "but that's not what Wendy and I were worried about. She thinks it was a lot at one time, probably a potentially lethal dose that has just tapered off until now."

"Then why is he still alive?" Nick asked.

"Couldn't say," Hodges replied. "Maybe the perp misjudged the amount. Maybe the heat from the desert helped him sweat it out. I don't really care, I just give you the facts, you make sense of it."

"So you think someone was trying to kill him," Sara said.

Hodges turned to glare at her a moment before looking at Nick again. "Well if they weren't trying to kill him, they were having one hell of a party. Whoever ditched Greg in the middle of the desert did not intend for him to be found alive."

"Holy…" Nick said. "This is more serious than we thought."

"No kidding," Sara said. "That heat stroke really could have been the death of him. If he hadn't woken up and thought to call us, he might…"

"Greg was shot today," Nick said suddenly, just now linking the two occurrences.

"Yeah, I heard that rumor going around," said Hodges.

"Not a rumor," Sara replied. She turned to Nick. "But I heard it was just a graze. We don't know the shooter was aiming at him."

"What else could he have been aiming at?" Nick returned. "Everyone else in that apartment was already dead, except for Mindy, and she was in the other room anyway."

"Then why did he miss?" Sara countered. "Snipers don't generally miss."

"I don't know," Nick said. "Sudden movement? Slip of the hand?"

"But how did he know Greg would be there?" Sara wondered.

"Let's figure that out, shall we?" Nick said.

Mindy poked her head in the lab. "Dammit, not you guys."

"Nice to see you too," Hodges said, bitterly. "Can I help you?"

"So long as it's two o'clock in the afternoon, you guys are on my turf," she snapped back. "I'm looking for Greg Sanders," she said. "I can't find the little worm anywhere, you guys know where he is?"

"You must be Mindy," Nick said stepping forward. "Yeah, in fact I just saw him a second ago leaving the locker room. I'm Nick Stokes."

"That runt's trying to wiggle out of work, isn't he?" Mindy said with a sigh, not taking Nick's proffered hand and ignoring the introduction altogether.

"He did get shot," Nick pointed out.

"That little thing?" Mindy said with a raised eyebrow. "Please, I've gotten paper cuts that have bothered me more."

People began running behind Mindy down the hall. Sara frowned.

"What's going on?" she asked to nobody in particular.

Mindy grabbed the arm of a lab tech. "Kevin, where are you going?" she asked. "This isn't a holiday, you have work to do here."

"Someone just got hit by a van!" the lab tech said. "Right outside."

A cold silence fell over them as Mindy let the lab tech go. Mindy turned and looked at Sara and Nick, whose faces were pale.

"Nah," she said. "You don't think… Batman?"

Sara pushed Mindy out of the way and ran down the hall with Nick close on her tail, leaving Mindy behind with Hodges to stare after them.

"So…" Hodges said. "Just you and me."

Mindy looked after the retreating CSIs, then back to Hodges. "She just pushed me. Did you see that?"

"Yeah," said Hodges. "That was pretty rude."

"No kidding," Mindy said, appalled.

"You want to get lunch?" Hodges asked.

Mindy shrugged. "OK." 


	3. Drugged Stupor

_**Author's Note:**_ I was going to give this to you tomorrow, but I'm a little drunk, and thus feeling rather generous, and so you get this today. Also, it's a brilliant way for me to avoid packing and watch the Daily Show instead. I know this is kind of... strange... but I'm trying to keep up the comedy as much as the mystery. So enjoy chapter three. Cheers. I guess this chapter is a little short. I don't really know. The next one's longer. Enjoy.

Chapter Three: Drugged Stupor

While for Warrick, it had all happened horrifically fast, everything went in slow motion for Greg. He felt the front of the van come in contact with his left side, and then he felt all his organs slosh over to his right as he rolled up onto the hood of the car, into the windshield, and finally off to the side, his body taking one hell of a beating that Greg felt all at once before he fell unconscious.

But in his dreams he was in a darker place indeed. A hotel room of sorts, but beyond that Greg could determine nothing. He tried to speak but his words were slurred and made no sense. He tried to move but his muscles wouldn't respond to his commands. Instead, someone moved him, hitting him, kicking him, roughing him up. Bits and pieces of conversation drifted in his ears.

"What are you doing that for?" a woman asked from the corner of the room.

"He has to look bad," whoever was kicking Greg explained. "He has to look like he's been through the ringer. A black eye or to, some bruises, that's all."

He soon left Greg alone, writhing on the floor, his head spinning, the walls around him melting… Everything was changing color. None of it made any sense. What was going on? He didn't even know where he was, or what day it was, or how long he had been there… He was hyper aware of everything, every little sound, every touch, every smell— oh the _smell_. The stale reek of alcohol and cigarettes and cheap cologne. His stomach churned as his brain did somersaults inside his head. Everything ached but he couldn't move, he couldn't speak, he couldn't run, all he could do was lay there, the smells and the sounds and the colors all violently attacking his senses, making him dizzy and nauseous. All he wanted was to go home. How had he gotten here? Why wasn't he at home in bed?

Sylvia…

The name glittered in his mind like a ripple in a pond. Why was that name so important to him?

There was a blow to his stomach and Greg's muscles seized up in response as the shattering pain echoed through him, enhanced by the drugs. Through his spotted vision, Greg could see light slipping through the blinds. It was daybreak. But what did that mean? From his crumpled in a heap on the floor, Greg tried to look up at his attacker, moving his neck just enough to see him. He was a large man with broad shoulders and an unforgiving gaze. Greg was in his undershirt and boxers, his clothes having been ripped from him before the beating had begun. In the corner of the room, Sylvia was rifling through his pants pockets. She pulled out a badge and froze. She looked up at Greg's attacker.

"Stop it. He's a cop."

"Are you joking?" The man's voice was dark and gravelly. "You brought me a cop, are you _joking_?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"I can't use a stupid _cop_, Sylvia, you know that! They won't believe it for an instant!"

"He was filthy and he was by the side of the road, he looked like a vagrant, I didn't think—"

"You _never_ think, Sylvia, and that's your problem."

_Smack_! He struck her clear across the face and she fell to her knees, her face in her hands, but she made no noise.

"So… what are we going to do?" she asked him, stifling a sob.

He looked over at Greg with stony gray eyes. "We kill him."

"Do you think we can still—"

"No. And it's too late to get another patsy. It all goes down in a few hours. We'll do what we can with what we've got. We can only hope that the pigs will be too worried about figuring out what happened to their littlest piggy here to give the investigation on us justice. We'll also need to rely a little more heavily on Shannon to do her job right. No, we can't frame him. But we can confuse the hell out of them."

"But what if they link his death to us?" Sylvia asked nervously. "What if there's evidence? It's one thing to get away with the bomb, but it would suck to be brought down on a stupid murder charge."

"They won't link it to us," the man replied. "That's what The Cleaner is for. Remember?"

Through the drug-induced haze in his mind, Greg saw the door open and looked over to see a pair of feet in red high heals. He was too tired to look up from the floor to see her face.

"Where's my money?"

"You'll get it, Shannon, so long as you do your part."

"I want the money now, you son of a bitch, or no deal."

"You're a feisty little thing aren't you?"

The woman seemed to stop and notice something. "What is she holding?" She waited for an answer, then got angry when he didn't reply. "What is your _slut_ holding?" She strode over to Sylvia and tore something out of her hand. "A badge, Ace? What the hell is your girlfriend doing with a… a CSI badge?"

The man gestured at Greg on the floor, who flinched as though if he remained tense enough he could turn invisible.

"She picked this piece of trash up off of the highway. Thought he was homeless. Claims she didn't know he was a cop."

"He's not a cop," the woman snapped. "He's a CSI, don't you morons know anything?" She walked over to Greg and he saw the toes of her high heals. "Jesus Christ… I know this guy! I need to get out of here, he could identify me, this could ruin _everything_." She made a move to leave, but the man caught her arm.

"Don't worry your pretty little head about a thing, Shannon," he said to her in soothing tones. "It's not like he can ID you. He's going to die later today. I mean, what did you think we were going to do, let him go? And even if we did, he's high as a kite right now. No clue what's going on."

"And how the hell are you going to manage killing a CSI on top of the other things you want me to cover up for you?" she snapped. "I'm not a miracle worker, Ace, it's not like I can fix all of your mistakes!"

"They call you The Cleaner for a reason, don't they?" the man retorted. "You leave everything immaculate. Nothing behind. You can do this, Shannon. I believe in you."

She hesitated a moment, before kicking Greg in the stomach again for good measure, which made the nausea rise up in his throat and dribble out of his mouth.

"Ew!" she exclaimed. "The bastard messed up my shoes."

Greg heard a gun cock.

And that was all he remembered as his head began to spin into blackness…

* * *

He once again woke up to see Nick hovering over him, but this time he wasn't looking so complacent. He was confused only momentarily, until he felt the agonizingly cold grip of icy fingers around his lungs, pushing the air out as the rest of his body screamed at him in anguish. He felt like his ribcage had been crushed and he reached a bruised hand up to his aching head to feel a bandage tied around it. He groaned, in too much pain to form words to ask the question. 

But Nick seemed to understand. "You were hit by a van, Greg," he said. "Warrick tried to get the plates, but the thing didn't have any, which only makes us think this wasn't an accident. Now this may sound like a stupid question after being hit by a van, but can you remember _anything_ about what happened to you in the three days you were missing?"

His head was pounding, but Greg closed his eyes and nodded slowly. As he did so, his neck creaked like an old rusty door hinge and he realized he was wearing a neck brace. Nick waited with bated breath, but Greg opened his eyes and gave him an annoyed look. Nick sighed.

"Don't feel up to talking just yet?" he asked.

Greg shook his head, not trusting his scratchy voice to speak at all. Oh _God_ why did it hurt so much? A van, Nick said? Why wasn't he dead? He felt as though he should be. He had terrible whiplash in his neck, which was miraculously not broken, and though he was sure his head had probably been cracked open when he hit the pavement, apparently he was fine enough to be conscious. The most painful part of him was his torso. His entire left side felt as though someone had run over it with a steamroller. It was sore and throbbing with jolts of pain that ripped his nerves to pieces. He could barely think. He wanted sleep again, but the thought terrified him. He didn't want to go back there to his subconscious where he would somehow remember things that should have been forgotten. Who were these people? Sylvia? Shannon? Ace? In his waking moments, he didn't recognize these names at all, but while asleep he had known them vividly and they had terrified him. He knew he was forgetting something very important but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what it was.

"Do you need anything?" Nick asked, helplessly. "I can get you water or… or something…"

Greg tried to think of the shortest word to say to get his point across. He wracked his scattered brain. "Drugs."

Nick blinked at him. "Like… marijuana?"

If Greg's head wasn't hurting so much he would have banged it against the headboard in frustration. He was dealing with an idiot. "Pain…" he said, his throat constricting on his words. He coughed and swallowed, trying to open it up again. "Drugs for pain…"

Nick's eyes widened in understanding as his mouth formed a tiny 'o.' "Right!" he said. "Yeah, OK, I'll be right back."

Greg rolled his eyes, then regretted the motion as it made his head throb. He closed them instead and gritted his teeth, annoyed at the raw agony that was rippling through his aching body. He imagined tiny devils dancing on his brain, poking their pitchforks into it as though it were meat roasting on a spit and they were checking to see if it was done. African natives were using his left side as drums as they slapped him with heavy hands. The echoes from the drums rang in Greg's head and the little devils danced to it gleefully.

Greg endured this hellish hallucination for what seemed like hours before Nick returned with a nurse who checked his IV and then went over to him and looked down at him with soft doe eyes.

"We're going to increase your morphine intake but just by a milliliter or two, OK?" she said softly. "Apparently the current dose isn't strong enough to keep you comfortable."

He was already _on_ morphine? The thought horrified him. If this is how he felt _on_ morphine, he couldn't imagine what the pain was like without it.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" the nurse continued.

Greg swallowed again and closed his eyes as he felt a single tear escape and roll down his cheek. He nodded.

"Good," the nurse said, and walked over to the IV. "Later on, if you want to switch to a less potent analgesic, you'll be able to choose your own doses and you won't need me here regulating it." She turned and smiled at him and Greg wished he could smile back. She was cute, and he looked like a train wreck. Or car wreck, more appropriately, he thought to himself.

She finished up with him. "There," she said. "Now tell your friend if you need me for anything else, or press the call button by your bed. You get some rest, though. It's a miracle you survived that hit and run."

As she left, Nick watched her leave, then turned back to Greg. "You're lucky," he told him. "You have the cutest nurse on staff. You can thank me for that later. They tried to give you this older lady with a beard, but she was kinda creepy and she had cold hands so I asked for a new one and they gave me her."

Greg wondered to himself if that was discrimination but didn't rightly care. He was too tired and as the pain was siphoned away by the morphine, he felt all the pressure just falling away beneath him as he floated lazily on a cloud. _This must be what heaven is_, he thought to himself absently. His eyes rolled up into his head and he smiled with relief. Soon enough, he forgot all about Nick and drifted off into his own universe.

* * *

The graveyard shift sans Nick and Greg were gathered around the table in one of the layout rooms, a blue print of the MGM Grand sprawled across the table, along with scattered files of suspects. 

"So what have we got so far?" Sara asked, looking up at Grissom who was frowning at the blueprints intently. "Some of us are new to this case."

Grissom looked up at this comment and smiled at her apologetically. "I know I keep shuffling you guys around, but there's too much pressure to solve this case. I can't spare anyone else for any other cases, not right now. Fifty people are dead and we have a city that wants to know who did it and why. Warrick, Sara, I asked you to switch from Greg's case because right now, this takes precedence. And besides, the evidence links Greg's case to this one anyway, so technically you're still working it. I know how worried you guys are about him."

Warrick nodded in understanding, but Sara still looked annoyed. She opened her mouth to protest when Warrick cut her off. "We get it, Grissom, it's OK. So what do we know?"

Sara folded her arms and pouted, but eyed the blue prints and files nonetheless. She would cooperate, but she wouldn't be happy about it.

"Well," Grissom began, turning back to the blue prints, "the FBI informs us that no known terrorist sects in the country use chalk as a calling card, but all that means is this isn't one of the known terrorist sects. We could be dealing with someone completely new. CIA released information on a need-to-know basis concerning an organization of drug lords in Columbia who used to bomb American and Columbian drug enforcement offices and send the authorities a small sample of cocaine as an ironic apology, but that's all that I know about that. As far as I know, it was the real deal and not chalk or anything else."

"Maybe it's somebody parodying those attacks?" Catherine suggested, but Grissom shook his head.

"Not likely. The information about the cocaine calling card was never released to the press, and the organization isn't very well-known in the US anyways. And the MGM Grand has nothing obvious to do with the drug trade."

"But we _did_ find Rophynol in his system," Warrick reminded them.

"But all that means is that he was drugged so they could handle him better," Catherine pointed out. "That's probably it."

"How do we even know it's terrorists?" Sara inquired. "I mean, what if it's just a disgruntled guest?"

Grissom nodded. "Brass interviewed Jack Spade, current MGM CEO. Spade claims that he had a discontented guest who got in a fight with his brother Alex about a week ago. Apparently, he lost all his money at the casino and was furious, so he completely trashed his room dumping— and this is where it gets interesting— _chalk_ dust all over the place."

"That sounds like our most likely suspect," Warrick said.

"And he would be," Grissom replied. "If we could find him. The man checked in under an assumed name and paid for his room with a stolen credit card. Spade was out of town for the weekend, so he couldn't give us a description, and his brother who was filling in for him gave us a very vague description."

"OK, so what about our other suspects?" Sara inquired. "I mean, we have to have _something_ here."

Grissom pointed to one of them. "This one is Shannon Dowling," he said. He looked up at his team. "She's an ex-girlfriend of Greg's."

Sara stared at him, her mouth agape. "You're kidding."

"I wish," Grissom said. "She was at the MGM just a few days before the bombing chatting it up with some sketchy organized crime types. But according to her, she was nothing to them but another call girl."

"She's a prostitute," Catherine deadpanned.

Grissom grinned and nodded. "And apparently, Jack Spade kicked her out because she was… servicing her clients while they played at the black jack tables."

"Greg dated a prostitute?" Warrick sputtered.

"She said he didn't know," Grissom explained. "It's one of the reasons their relationship ended. He couldn't take it. She didn't seem too fond of him. Said he took her job too seriously. Insulted her by asking if she'd been checked recently for any STDs."

"Sounds like he was just looking out for himself to me," Warrick said.

"Well she's high class," Grissom said. "Apparently she only goes with the really high rollers. They call her their lucky charm. And she gets her monthly checkup just like any other girl. She was upset that he'd think she wouldn't."

"But what's the chalk got to do with her?" Sara asked.

"One of her bits is that she plays a school teacher," Grissom said. "Chalk is part of her act. We took some from under her nails when Brass brought her in for questioning."

"I don't even want to know how that works," Warrick said.

"Well she definitely has a connection to both Greg and the MGM Grand," Catherine noted. "Could she have drugged him and ditched him out in the desert for revenge and blow up the hotel in one night? The bag of chalk a kind of trademark?"

Grissom shook his head and sighed, irritated. "She has an alibi," he said. "She was bedding Frank Sporelli at the Bellagio Sunday night, and she claims she hasn't seen Greg since they split two months ago."

"Frank Sporelli the Roulette King?" Warrick spluttered. "That man's a genius at figuring the odds on that game."

"He's also notorious for cheating," Grissom added. "But he corroborates her story. So does the clerk at the desk."

"What about this guy?" Catherine asked, pushing a file to Grissom.

Grissom looked at her skeptically. "Alex Spade? He's not a suspect."

Catherine cocked an eyebrow. "If he's not a suspect, then you don't know Alex Spade very well, do you?"

"And you do?" Sara queried.

Catherine blushed just a little before giving Sara an irritated smile. "For your information, he used to like to hit the club I worked at a lot back in the day. He was one of the highest paying customers, but he treated his women _very_ poorly. I never did anything for him, just in case you guys were wondering. I saw how he treated the other dancers. _And_ he has motive. The only reason Jack got the CEO job was because he was the oldest. Alex argued with his father about it so much that Old Man Spade wrote him out of the will completely, and when he died, Jack got everything. Alex has been resentful ever since."

"He has an alibi too, Catherine," Grissom said. "He was with his brother all night discussing business. Their secretary confirmed, even gave me the minutes for the meeting."

"I never said Alex was the type to get his hands dirty," Catherine said. "Just that he had a grudge against his family and was the sleazeball type."

"You think he hired someone to do it for him," Warrick concluded and Catherine nodded.

"Well…" Grissom said. "I guess I'll have Brass pull him in again."


	4. Troubling Evidence

_**Author's Note:**_ This chapter underwent serious renovation when I was on the plane to Houston today. It was previously called "If I Was Clever Enough, This Would Have A Title." Also, as I am in Houston, posting may be... interrupted. No fears, as usual, I never post unless I have a severe intent to finish. And now, I'm gonna watch a movie with my friend. Also, I know a lot of you don't like Mindy-- believe me, that was intentional. ;o)

* * *

Chapter Four: Troubling Evidence  


Mindy leaned over Archie's shoulder in the AV lab.

"Go back!" she said.

Archie rolled his eyes. "Mindy, I've _gone_ back fifty times already."

"You can kinda make out his face," she explained. "The frame right before he hits Batman."

Nick walked swiftly into the room. "What'd I miss?" he asked.

"Are you on this case now too or are you just worried about your lover?" Mindy asked.

Nick glared at her. "It'll be a pleasure to work with you too, Mindy."

"We're just going over the security footage outside of the pizzeria," Archie explained. "Lucky for us, that place has had trouble with panhandling and there's already a no loitering sign. The pizzeria owner was getting pissed because they were chasing away customers, so he put up this camera to get their faces on tape to report them."

"So what do we have?" Nick asked.

"Well, Mindy here thinks she sees a face," Archie replied.

Nick frowned as he froze the frame. The fender was just coming into contact with Greg's torso and the three of them squinted at the screen before Archie shook his head.

"Nah," he said. "The sun's reflecting off of the glass right on his face. See?" He zoomed in on the face of the driver and blew it up, cleaning up the pixels.

"But you can still see half of his face," Mindy pointed out. "Check it out, he's wearing sunglasses."

She was right. The left half of the man's face was visible, showing a square jaw and a five o'clock shadow as well as a nice pair of sunglasses.

"Those look expensive," Nick said.

"You think he stole them?" Mindy suggested.

But Nick was slowly shaking his head. "I think we're in the middle of a conspiracy…" He leaned over Archie and hit the print key, receiving a dirty look from the AV tech.

"You know, the polite thing to do is _ask_," Archie said snidely.

"This is faster," Nick replied as he went over to the printer.

"So how is our boy?" Mindy asked, her eyes wide with something that Nick couldn't quite place.

A small smile crept across his features. "You're _worried_ about him, aren't you?"

She looked stunned. "Worried? Hell no. The little bugger has been nothing but trouble for me ever since he disappeared. I was just wondering if he was dead yet or not."

But Nick wouldn't be dissuaded as his smile turned into an outright grin. "Whatever you say," he said. "He's doing fine. In a lot of pain and he can't really talk. Oh, he said he remembered something about his disappearance. But he was too exhausted to talk about it."

"Really?" Mindy seemed intrigued. "I should probably swing by there and get a statement."

"I'll take you over after we figure out who hit him," Nick said. "It's probably the same guy who left him to die in the middle of the desert."

"Probably," Mindy agreed. "But what are you going to do? You can't plaster half a face around and ask if folks have seen it."

"No…" Nick said. "But we can get an artist's rendering of it based on the half we have. I'll get on that."

Wendy knocked on the door than stopped. "Oh. Someone told me Warrick was in here."

"Nope, just us," Nick said. "What do you need?"

Wendy looked at the file in her hand, then up at Nick with curious eyes. "You're working Greg's case?" Nick nodded. "Well… Warrick has been looking into the death of one of the women at the MGM Grand, a… Sylvia Kent. Well, her blood was all over Greg when you found him."

Mindy and Nick exchanged looks. "What's that mean for Batman?" she asked. "He didn't kill her, did he?"

"Greg?" Nick laughed. "Wouldn't hurt a fly. But that is strange…"

"And it further links him to the MGM case," Mindy said. "Nick, he's a suspect."

But Nick adamantly shook his head. "He can't be a suspect, he was—"

"Missing for three days, when the bomb went off!" Mindy interrupted. "Maybe after you left him at the bar, and his car broke down, he met a nice girl, she took him to the MGM Grand, something happened, he needed to cover it up—"

"So he blows up a hotel lobby to get rid of the crime scene and fakes his own kidnapping?" Nick said skeptically. "I appreciate the theory, Mindy, but you don't know Greg like I do."

"Maybe you don't know Greg as well as you think…" Mindy suggested. Nick glared at her and she sighed. "Look, I don't mean to pick on your favorite love slave, but I'm the only one who's being unbiased here. If he were anyone else, being covered in a victim's blood is grounds for being a suspect in a murder. I'm right, and you know it, and it _kills_ you because it means your little Greg could be capable of killing someone."

"Maybe he was framed," Nick suggested. "Did you ever think of that, Miss Unbiased Investigator?"

"He could have been," Mindy admitted. "But Occam's Razor—"

"Do you have something against Greg or something?" Nick interrupted angrily. "The kid was abducted, drugged, left to die in a desert, _shot_ at and hit with a van all in the span of three days! What kind of issue do you have to have with a guy to—"

"Nick, I don't have _anything_ against Greg Sanders, I'm just trying to remain impartial here!" Mindy snapped. "Shot at and hit with a van, _yes_, OK, those were bad, but as for being abducted, well, maybe he was just laying low for a few days in the desert, took some Rophynol to take the edge off— people do that, you know, roofies are taken more often for recreation than anything else— and then when he thought he'd disappeared for long enough, he drove out in the middle of the desert and decided to call you up and—"

"Shut up!" Nick screamed. "You don't know what you're talking about."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I know _exactly_ what I'm talking about," she hissed. "It was originally Warrick and I on this case, remember? Then you and Sara picked it up, and then she and Warrick both switched to the MGM bombing case, but who's been with it from the beginning? _Me_, OK, not you. I know _all_ of the details of his abduction and it looks _staged_, Nick!"

"He fainted of heat stroke!" Nick was flabbergasted. "He was bruised up like a battered spouse for Christ's sake!"

"All easily explained by the drugs in his system," Mindy said. "Look, I'm sorry that I've upset you but horses, not zebras, Nick—"

There was a crash as Nick hit a nearby table with his fist and the contents spilled onto the floor. It shut Mindy up instantly and she made a tiny yelp as she jumped at the sound.

"Nick!"

Grissom was in the doorway, looking livid, but he quickly calmed down as he looked from Mindy to Nick again. He licked his lips. "Calm down," he said. "She's right."

Nick turned his silent fury to his supervisor. He tried to control his quaking voice. "Grissom… Greg would never kill somebody. And even if he did, he wouldn't cover it up with some scheme like that! He's just not _smart_ enough to do that."

"Don't make fun of Batman," Mindy pouted quietly. "That's my job."

Nick shot her a look, then turned back to Grissom waiting for an answer.

Grissom chose his words carefully. "I don't think he intentionally deceived us, Nick," he said quietly. "But it's possible that he may have killed someone in the past few days and just not remember it. Or you could be right. He might not have killed anyone at all. But he was probably there when she died. Her blood had to have gotten on him somehow."

Nick was breathing heavily and scowling. He knew Grissom was right, but he was still furious with Mindy for suggesting that Greg was devious enough to concoct such an elaborate lie. "Fine," he said. "But what are we going to do, interrogate him? He's doped up on morphine, believe me, I saw him, he's so out of it he doesn't know up from down."

"We'll wait for him to get a little better," Grissom replied calmly. "In the meantime, we pursue other leads. Did the security footage give you anything?"

"Mindy found a face," Archie chirped, making Mindy grin proudly.

"Half a face," Nick amended enviously. "I was just about to get a forensics artist to sketch the other half for me and then try and then get it out to the media to see if anyone can ID him." Nick handed Grissom the print out.

The blood in Grissom's veins ran cold. He looked up at Nick with a curious expression before turning on his heal without a word and striding out of the room, leaving a baffled Nick, Archie, Wendy and Mindy behind.

He couldn't explain it… yet. But he knew that face. He had just spoken to the man who wore it. He pushed the door to the interrogation room open to see his suspect and Brass look up at him. Grissom reached into the file he held and pulled out one of the crime scene photos taken of Greg after he'd been hit by the van. He then pushed the blown up photograph of the driver's face next to the photo of Greg.

"Mr. Spade," he said coolly. "Would you care to explain why you so callously decided to hit a CSI with your car?"

Alex Spade calmly looked at the photographs, then up at Grissom and shrugged. "I don't recall hitting anyone," he replied. "That clearly isn't me. The image is indistinct, and I don't even own a black van."

"Mr. Spade," Grissom replied, "I can make out the mole on your right cheek in this photograph."

The lawyer reached over and examined the image for himself before shaking his head. "No, I'm sorry, that dot could be anything," he replied. "You can't make an accurate match to my client with this shoddy evidence. Besides, I thought we were here to discuss the bombing at the MGM Grand?"

"If we're just discussing it, then why are you here?" Brass asked directly to the lawyer.

"To protect my client's interests," the lawyer returned nastily. "He's a very important businessman, and to be accused of a crime as outrageous as this is simply erroneous slander. Are we done here?"

Grissom slammed his fists on the pictures, the first sign of emotion he had shown ever since the whole thing had begun. "No we are _not_ done here," he said sternly, his voice betraying only a sliver of the loathing he was feeling for this greaseball. "I want to know what it is that you have against Greg Sanders!"

"Gil…" Brass said in a warning tone.

"I don't even know who that is!" Alex said, sounding exasperated.

"He's the CSI you've been trying to murder," Grissom replied, his voice more calm. "First by overdose, second by sniper, and third by vehicular manslaughter. What's the matter, Mr. Spade? Your assassins didn't come through for you so you figured you'd run over the kid _yourself_?"

"This is harassment!" the lawyer exclaimed. He turned to Brass. "He can't come in here and—"

"I'll do what I damn well please," Grissom interrupted. "And your client seems to have the same attitude. He thinks that just because he comes from a wealthy family and has a lot of money up his sleeves that he can get away with murdering fifty people and then personally come after one of _my_ guys on some ludicrous vendetta that I can't even _begin_ to comprehend."

"My client reported a suspect to you," the lawyer replied icily. "The guest who threw chalk all over his room. His brother even corroborated the story, how come you're not harassing _that_ asshole?"

"Hey…" Alex said pensively for a moment. "Wait a minute, can I see those pictures again?"

Grissom held on tightly to them but Brass took them out of his hands, giving Grissom a worried look as he slid them across the table to Alex Spade.

The door to the room opened and Mindy popped her head in. "Uh… Gilly? That's not our guy."

As Grissom stared at her, Brass cocked an eyebrow at him. "Mindy, now isn't a good time."

"Really?" she said. "Because I thought it was a perfect time. You know, before you made an even bigger ass of yourself fin front of one of Las Vegas's most powerful families."

He couldn't believe her audacity. "Can we talk about this outside, please?"

She shrugged. "Sure thing, Gil." She closed the door.

Brass pursed his lips to contain his amusement. "Gilly?"

Grissom didn't dignify the quiet question with a response. Instead, he walked towards the door and saw Mindy waiting for him behind the glass.

"That was _completely_ uncalled for," he said firmly.

"Please, Gil, you're not _my_ supervisor," she replied. She showed him the image. "That mole was a stuck pixel. Really, our driver doesn't got one."

Grissom stared at the image for a long time before looking up at Mindy. Great. The one time he lost his nerve, and it hadn't even been with the right suspect. He handed Mindy back the image and swallowed his pride. It got stuck in his throat momentarily, but he swallowed again and it dropped like a stone into the pit of his stomach, making him feel less than healthy.

"Thank you, Mindy," he said sincerely, before turning around and walking back into the interrogation room.

He sat down next to Brass and across from Alex Spade's lawyer, who was looking at him expectantly. He addressed Alex directly. "Mr. Spade, I am sorry for my harsh words. If you have any more evidence pertaining to the bombing, please let us know and we'll do what we can."

The lawyer seemed livid, but Alex was forgiving as he fixed Grissom with an understanding gaze. "It's OK, Mr. Grissom," he replied. "I'm sure you're under a lot of pressure with this case, and now that one of your men has been hit by a van… It's only reasonable."

"Thank you for understanding," Grissom said politely.

"But…" Alex said, looking back at the photos. "And I'm just telling you what I know here…"

"What is it, Mr. Spade?" Brass encouraged him.

Alex looked nervous. "Well, I don't mean to be pointing fingers or anything, and it could be a coincidence. It's hard to tell with all the bruising the kid's got, but… But he looks like the guy who trashed our suite a few weeks ago. The one I told you about."

Grissom took a deep breath through his nose as he studied Alex intently, searching for the lies that he knew took haven in the corners of his eyes. And yet, they hid well from him. The man was nervous, it was true, but that could be explained away by the fact that he was accusing a CSI of a grave crime to his colleagues. What did Alex expect of him? Did Alex Spade really think that Grissom and Brass would blindly believe his already shaky testimony? Catherine was right. Grissom had never seen Alex with any women, but he could tell just by the man's demeanor that he was slippery and dark inside. It wasn't blood that ran through his veins. It was black tar.

Alex looked at Brass. "Am I free to go now?"

Brass glanced at Grissom, then at Alex and nodded. Alex and his lawyer rose to their feet. The lawyer looked highly unsatisfied.

"We'll be in touch," he said, and it was more of a threat than an offer to help.

As they left, Brass turned to Grissom. "What's gotten into you?" he asked. "I thought you were the pillar of calm."

"Did you hear what he said about Greg?" Grissom asked.

"You flipped out and calmed down again way before the accusation against Greg tumbled out," Brass replied evenly. "And we all know that was bullshit anyway."

Grissom sighed and rubbed his eyes. "It's been a long week, Jim."

Brass nodded. "You've had plenty of long weeks in the past. It's more than that."

"It's just… we don't have a single viable suspect."

"Technically, we have Greg," Brass said at an attempt at humor.

Grissom was not amused as he glared at Brass. He continued as if Brass hadn't spoken. "Alex Spade was perfect, for everything. He had motive against his brother for the bomb, we had him on film hitting Greg with his car…"

"But we still don't know how Greg is linked to the bombing, if the two incidents are linked at all," Brass pointed out. "Unless you want to believe his crazy story…"

Grissom wouldn't even give this possibility credit. "Jim, three attempts on his life were made in one day. If he's not on a hit list for something, than he's incredibly unlucky. The officers are still posted at his door?"

"Have been since the day he was admitted," Brass replied.

"I just want to solve this," Grissom muttered. "The sooner we figure this out, the sooner I can stop worrying about someone trying to kill Greg for something he doesn't even remember…"

* * *

He had his team working like dogs after that interview. He had all the evidence run double time. He had this sinking feeling that if he could only solve who bombed the MGM Grand he could figure out who was trying to kill Greg. 

Hopefully, Greg would be able to help them out a bit with maybe something he might have remembered. But as it was, Greg was still recovering and unintelligible when awake, and therefore useless to Grissom and the investigation. The doctors said Greg could come around any time between a week and a month from now. It all depended on how fast he healed. The faster he healed, the less pain he would be in, and the less medication would be needed to keep him comfortable.

When Nick wasn't at the lab, he was at Desert Palms, and when he wasn't at Desert Palms, then Sara took his place. On occasion, Warrick would accompany one of them to check up on how Greg was doing. And every time Catherine got a break, instead of eating, she'd make her own way to the hospital. When the first weekend arrived, she left Lindsey with her sister and spent both Saturday and Sunday with Greg.

Grissom had no time for such luxuries. He could not waste a single moment concentrating on anything other than the case. He lived, ate and slept at the lab, pouring over the blue prints to the MGM Grand until he knew them by heart, looking over suspect files and alibis with Brass, and analyzing the components used in the bomb that had destroyed one of Las Vegas's finest hotels.

The bomb had been triggered remotely, but where the signal originated they couldn't say. It had been constructed so that most of it was destroyed instantly in the heat and by the sheer concussive force of the explosion. But what they had recovered hadn't helped them to identify who had constructed it.

As days slowly turned into weeks and Grissom was not anywhere closer than he was when he had started, Mindy finally stumbled across him asleep over the stacks of paperwork on his desk. However, instead of politely waking him, she walked in and leaned in close to the sleeping Grissom, like a child ready to taunt a slumbering bear. With one index finger carefully extended, she poked him quickly in the shoulder before jumping back, fearing his fury.

He did not move.

It was at this point in time that Mindy decided to use a more direct approach. She once again leaned over his desk so she was face to face with the man before saying, absurdly loudly, "Wake the hell up!"

Grissom was instantly awake as he pushed back in his chair and nearly fell over. He glowered at her furiously through narrowed eyes, which had heavy black bags weighing underneath them. "Is there something I can help you with, Mindy, or do you just enjoy tormenting me?"

"A little bit of both," she said, sounding annoyingly chipper. "First of all, I refuse to watch that surveillance tape one more time. We're not getting anything clearer than what we already have, OK? The artist's rendering is as good as we're going to get. Second of all, how is Greg doing?"

Grissom gave her a tired smile. "No real change, I'm afraid."

Mindy's face fell. "So he's not conscious," she said. "He hasn't said anything."

"Nothing coherent," Grissom answered. "Last I heard, he was rambling on to Nick about Buddy Holly and the Brady Bunch and something about wallabies…"

Mindy cocked an eyebrow. "Right…" she said slowly, but then sped up again. "Anyway, third of all, I got a hold of the security tapes from a few weeks ago when Alex Spade claims his room was trashed? Well… You'll never believe the face we have on camera."

Grissom removed his glasses, only half-listening to the irksome redhead as he rubbed his temples, trying to dispel the oncoming headache he knew was hovering like a storm cloud over the horizon. "Right now, I'll believe anything," he said. "Who's on it?"

Mindy tossed stills from the footage onto Grissom's desk. Grissom looked at the pictures without his glasses momentarily, then blinked as his brow furrowed in bafflement. He immediately reached for his glasses and put them on again, holding the pictures closer.

He looked up at Mindy, looking baffled. "Why didn't we see these before?"

"The organization of the security tapes at the MGM Grand is horrendous," Mindy replied. "Jack Spade just fired his head of security because of it. It took them this long to find the tapes."

Grissom blinked at the photos and slowly shook his head. "No, this… this can't be right. You can't make out his face, and he's wearing… clothes he doesn't normally wear…"

"But you see it, too, right?" Mindy pressed, her green eyes wide. "You see what I see? I'm not going crazy?"

Slowly, Grissom shook his head as he stared up at Mindy, utter perplexity scribbled across his features. "That guy looks one hell of a lot like Greg."


	5. In Black And White

_**Author's Note:**_ There was a last minute deleted scene from this chapter, so it's shorter than it originally was. The scene was deleted because it made obscure references to the Rocky Horror Show which, if you have not seen the film or the play, would make little to no sense. However, if there are Rocky fans reading this, never fear-- the scene will be included in yet another "Special Features" section of this story along with another "deleted scene" from a later chapter, the details of which I cannot disclose presently.

Chapter Five: In Black And White

Grissom insisted Mindy show him the tape immediately. But no matter how many times he watched it, he couldn't deny the truth that was displayed right in front of his eyes in black and white. The security cameras had caught Greg on tape, causing a commotion in the casino area of the hotel. But something was very wrong in the way he was behaving. Something almost… chilling. He wasn't quite himself, at least he didn't seem so to Grissom. He was stumbling around, not quite sure what was going on, as though he were drunk, or sedated. He ran into people and knocked things over, but he wasn't yelling or screaming. He seemed unsure of himself, and very weak, barely able to hold himself up. It's true, Alex Spade had described the man who caused trouble as a drunk, but this… He seemed oblivious to everything that was going on around him. He didn't look like an angry man, just someone who wanted to find his way out of there.

And then, Alex Spade came into view and marched up to Greg followed by a few of Spade's lackeys. At the sight of him, Greg seemed to stop and back up a few paces, looking to run away, but Alex quickened his speed and grabbed Greg by the shoulders. He seemed to say a few words at him before… That was interesting…

"Alex is looking at the camera," Grissom muttered.

"So?" Mindy said.

"It's like… he's making sure it was filming…" Grissom frowned at the time stamp in the corner of the screen. "Archie— do you see that TV in the corner? Can you blow it up for me?"

"What's the TV have to do with anything?" Mindy snapped, obviously irritated.

"I've seen security footage from the MGM Grand while investigating the bombing," Grissom explained absently as Archie tried to comply. "The time stamp is written in yellow. Here, it's done in white."

Archie blew up the TV and cleaned up the pixels. Paula Francis was on, but there was no way to know what she was talking about. "What do you want from this, boss?" Archie asked.

"Can you try and clean up the headline or the news ticker so we can read it?" Grissom asked. "It's the next best thing to a news paper to figure out if this is the right date or not."

"You think the evidence has been tampered with?" Mindy asked, her mouth agape.

"I think it would explain why it took us so long to get a hold of it," Grissom replied. "I know Greg. But I have never seen him look or act like that. He doesn't seem angry or like he wants to cause trouble. He seems disoriented and… afraid. That's why he was backing away from Spade. He was afraid of him."

Archie was frowning at the screen before he leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "Sorry, boss, that's the best I can do right now. I can keep trying to clean up the picture, but I don't know what good it'll do."

"Please do, Archie," Grissom muttered absently as he stared at the fuzzy letters of the news ticker on the screen.

"So… if it's been tampered with…" Mindy said slowly. "Then… Alex is our most viable suspect."

"Right," said Grissom triumphantly. "And ironically, the only solid evidence we have against him he obligingly supplied for us."

Mindy was beginning to catch on as a wicked smile crossed her features. "I get it…" she said, almost to herself. "You think that _Alex_ plotted to bomb the hotel to get back at his brother, and then use Greg as a patsy."

"And that's why he kept trying to kill him," Grissom replied. "He could have made it seem like a suicide in the first place, but when Greg didn't die from the overdose, he had to make sure to kill him before he talked. A scapegoat is no good if he knows he's been played."

"But he didn't count on catching a CSI," Mindy said, sounding a little bit proud. "He didn't think we'd question his word, since he's such a big shot, but when you accuse one of us of doing something that crazy, well, you have to have some substance to your claim. So he faked the surveillance footage while Greg was still drugged up in order to make it seem like he had caused a problem a few weeks ago so he could blame it all on him! It's almost brilliant, if he wasn't such an idiot."

"You know, I think you're beginning to grow on me, Mindy," Grissom said honestly.

"Yeah, right back at you. Like foot fungus." Mindy smirked.

Grissom laughed for the first time in three weeks.

* * *

The annoying thing about dreams, at least Greg's dreams, was they very rarely made any sense to him. He had the sinking feeling that his subconscious was desperately trying to tell him something but the logical part of his mind was too stupid to figure out what it was. And the drug-induced dreams were the worst. Greg felt as though he was taking a guided tour through one of Salvador Dali's paintings. 

The melting clocks were his tour guides. "And this over here is the tree branch that I was previously drooped over before I was offered this job…"

Greg looked around at the landscape made of paint. He touched the clay-red ground and instead of dirt he got oil and colors on his hands. His fingers were sticky. He looked at the talking clock and raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Where's the bathroom?" Greg asked.

The clock didn't seem to understand. It looked at Greg a moment without eyes before turning around and continuing on the tour. "And over _here_ is the desk on which I was shattered in the famous 'Clock Explosion.' I was cast in the leading role in that one, the director had a brilliant eye and a swift hand. Entertainment Weekly did an interview with me about it in September of 1742…"

The tour group wandered off somewhere, leaving Greg behind staring at his oily hands and wondering what to do to clean them. The maroon goop dribbled off his fingertips and under his nails. Somehow, he knew he would never get it out.

He wiped his hands on his shirt and jeans and all of a sudden understood why he had woken up earlier covered in what he had originally thought to be food coloring and corn syrup. It wasn't blood at all, but only paint! Paint that he had wiped on himself, paint from someone _else's_ masterpiece that he had been stupid enough to touch.

Greg remembered looking at the oil paint on the canvas, and as he remembered it, he was transported to a gallery. The snobbish bourgeoisie passed left and right of him, stopping every so often to scowl at a painting and always criticize it.

The painting Greg was looking at now seemed morbid to him, a woman with black hair, fallen face forward down a flight of concrete stairs. Blood seeped out of her back from what looked to be a knife wound. The perspective of the observer was from the top of the flight of stairs. Greg felt as though he had just watched her fall. Or indeed that maybe, he had pushed her. He got a disorienting sense of vertigo at the thought.

"I don't know…" said a stuck-up woman standing next to him as she took in the piece. "I think it's a little drab. Not enough color for my tastes."

"You don't need color to have beauty…" Greg muttered. "Some of the world's most stunning things are painted in shades of gray."

"Mm," the woman muttered, unimpressed. "But it's a little depressing."

"How so?" Greg asked, his eyes never leaving the painting.

"Look at that white dress…" the woman muttered. "It's a tragedy to stain it with all that messy blood."

Greg said nothing. He saw a strange beauty in the way the crimson created intricate patterns on the woman's ivory dress and her even paler skin.

The woman beside him was still muttering. "Inaccurate, too. Would you look at that blood pool? There's no way that was the result of a fall down the stairs."

"She was stabbed," Greg explained. "You can see the wound in her back."

"She could have been shot," the woman suggested. "All we see is a wound, and since this isn't a real crime scene, we can't really determine how she died, can we, Batman?"

The name rang a familiar bell in Greg's head and for the first time in their conversation, he turned to look at her. Her auburn hair was lightly curled and fell softly on her shoulders. She wore a black evening gown and her lips were painted blood red as she smiled at Greg behind strangely magnificent green eyes.

"You are sure she was stabbed?"

Slowly, Greg nodded, then turned back to the painting. "Her throat was slit too. I saw it happen."

"Silly thing to say, that," she mused. "Considering it's just a painting."

She knew more than she was letting on and Greg turned to her desperately, though his voice remained casual. "Why can't I remember anything, Mindy?"

She gave him a complacent smile before turning back to the painting and folding her arms. "Sometimes your mind suppresses things in order to protect you, Batman," she replied with the hint of mystery to her voice. "And since that is all I am, that is all I can say."

"You're which?" Greg inquired. "My mind or a suppressed memory?"

Her emerald orbs flickered over to him, her smug smirk still in place. She winked at him before turning left and walking away as she hummed an indecipherable hymn.

Greg momentarily considered pursuing her, but his attention returned once again to the painting as he stared transfixed. His mind was trying to tell him something, but what he couldn't say. It was important, and he was desperate to unlock the closet door and let the skeletons tumble out.

An idea occurred to him. "Mindy!" he called out across the crowded gallery, but no one seemed to pay him any heed except for her.

The redhead paused then turned to look at him over her shoulder in intrigue. She gave him a Cheshire cat grin before turning fully to face him. She moved like water and this fascinated him.

"Sylvia…" he said. " Shannon. Ace. What do these names mean?"

For a moment, she looked almost as if she was going to answer him, but then her face became vacant and she shrugged.

"Sorry, Batman," she said. "You're going to have to figure that one out on your own."

He headed towards her, but the gallery suddenly became very crowded with faceless zombies walking around in tuxedos and black and white evening gowns. The only hint of color in the room was in the paintings and Mindy's dark red hair and twinkling green eyes. He pushed past one nondescript automaton only to find himself faced with another and soon they were all crowding in on him, their accusing arrogance filling his head with useless propaganda about artwork and 'how things should be…' But he needed to find her. He couldn't lose sight of that elegant redhead. The only one in that entire gallery with a face. The only one that offered him the fruit of knowledge and then held it just out of his reach. He longed to taste it, he longed to know the truth, and the consequences be damned. For he knew there would be consequences, even if he didn't know what they were for. There was always consequences.

The room dissolved around him and he was left in a sea of blackness not unlike the gaping hole in his memory. Mindy's voice sang in his ear.

"Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."

Greg looked around. "I shall not surely die," he said to her omnipotent voice. "For God doth know that in the day I eat thereof, then my eyes shall be opened, and I shall be as a god, knowing good and evil."

Mindy's laugh echoed in his ears. "Some of the world's most stunning things are painted in shades of gray, Batman. Is it really possible to ever truly separate good from evil?"

But before Greg could even answer, his mind stopped working. He saw red through the back of his eyelids, and he prayed that he wasn't back in the desert again. The good news was, he felt no pain. In all honesty, he didn't feel much of anything. Slowly, he opened his eyes and blinked at the white florescent light that buzzed above his bed.

He was so very tired, but apparently his mind had decided that it was bored with sleeping. His brain tried to make sense of his very absurd dreamscape escapade. When he failed, he simply closed his eyes again.

His throat felt like someone had poured sand down it. It was rough and parched and he felt that if he tried to speak he would break it. Swallowing hurt. He tried to lick his chapped lips, but his mouth was as dry as a bone. Where was water when he needed it?

"Mr. Sanders, you're awake."

What was that voice? Was that Mindy's voice? Greg opened his eyes again to see the nurse who had been kind enough to give him the morphine earlier. He couldn't move, he couldn't even smile, so he just laid there and blinked at her like a vegetable.

"You should be feeling a little better in a few days," the nurse explained, seeming to empathize with his pain. "You've made tremendous progress already over the last few weeks."

_Weeks?_ That was impossible. He had only been asleep for a little while. Hadn't he?

His confusion must have been evident in his face. The nurse continued. "Do you remember me?"

Slowly and painfully, Greg nodded.

She smiled softly. "Do you remember my name?"

_Name?_ She never told him a name. The last thing Greg remembered about her was that Nick had told him she was the cutest nurse on staff. But he didn't know her _name_. He shook his head.

She bit her lip. "Ooh, that's not very good at all," she said, and made a note in his chart.

Wasn't very good? What was she talking about? He had to speak. "Uh… wa… ter?"

She nodded fervently before going to a tray table and pouring from a pitcher into a paper cup. She held it to Greg's lips and gently tipped it into his mouth. The water dribbled out of the corners, but most of it made it into his arid mouth. It was like rains flooding a drought-stricken farm land, washing away all the rough and grimy top soil to reveal a moist and rich soil beneath. Greg swallowed, his throat significantly less sore. He felt as though he hadn't tasted a drop of water in years.

He coughed and tried to speak again. "How long?"

"Three weeks," the nurse replied.

"When did… Nick?" he asked.

"The last time Nick Stokes was here was two days ago," the nurse explained. "You talked to him. Sort of…" She looked skeptical, but then smiled. "You've been under the influence of the morphine, most of the things you said came out in riddles, and that was only when you were awake. Most of the time you just slept."

But Greg shook his head. "No, I… the first time… with the morphine, when was…?"

The nurse seemed to understand. "Well at that point you had only been here for about five days."

Greg rolled his eyes. His latest memory was of two weeks ago. And then he lost five more days of his memory and only remembered the events from waking up to getting hit by a car. And then before that, he had lost three days. If he couldn't be called an amnesiac yet, he wondered what more he would have to forget to be allowed to join the club.

"Do they know… who…?"

She didn't understand. "I'm sorry, sweetie?"

Greg coughed. "Do they know who hit me?"

She shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, sweetie, not yet. You've had a lot of visitors, though." Her eyes rolled up to the ceiling as she tried to remember all their names. "Uh… Nick came by of course, and, uh… Sara's been here quite a few times, too— she brought you those." She nodded at a bag of Hershey's kisses on Greg's bedside table. There was a small card that said 'Kisses for Greg, ♥ Columbia.'

" Columbia…?" he said, confused.

The nurse smirked. "You had a Rocky Horror thing going on for a while."

Greg laughed inwardly as a vague memory of the dream returned to him. "That's not exactly the kind of kisses I had in mind," he said, his voice gravelly but his thoughts coming in more clearly now.

The nurse chuckled a little herself. "And, uh… Warrick, I think his name was? He came by once or twice. Catherine Willows is here a _lot_." The nurse laughed. "She's very sweet, how she dotes on you like she does."

Greg's brow furrowed in confusion. "I'm sorry… Catherine?"

The nurse nodded vigorously. "Yes, she takes good care of you. Always asks about your progress, I mean, well, they all do, but she always says you should be getting better faster. She says that you're strong, and you shouldn't let one bad day get the better of you. I remember, once she told me that she thought you were recovering slowly on purpose just to milk the attention. She was joking, of course. She's very protective of you. Very maternal."

A vague smile crossed Greg's lips. He didn't know Catherine cared that much. "Grissom?" he asked.

The nurse blinked at him absently. "I'm sorry?"

"Gil Grissom," Greg clarified. "Has he been to see me?"

The nurse slowly shook her head. "Um… No… The only other person who has come by is a sweet girl, oh… what was her name? Mandy? Cindy?"

"Mindy," Greg supplied.

"Yes, that's it," the nurse nodded. "She also always asks how you're doing, asks if you're coherent yet, asks if you've mentioned her… She's your girlfriend?"

Greg let out a guffaw, but it hurt his side too much and he immediately regretted it. He flinched, but recovered and shook his head. "Oh no, far from it," he told the nurse. "That's interesting that she's been around. I had the funniest dream about her."

"Oh…" the nurse looked bashful. "I'm sorry, she was so anxious to know if you'd asked about her, and sometimes you would mutter her name in your sleep, I just thought…"

"She's a bitch," Greg said. "But I guess she has a heart after all, asking after me and the like." The nurse nodded. "What was your name again?" Greg asked.

"Harriet," she replied quickly. "I'm sorry, I forget that you don't remember things… That's the fourth time I've introduced myself to you."

Greg shrugged apologetically. "Honey, you can keep introducing yourself to me for the rest of our lives."

She gave him a sly look. "Nick warned me you were a flirt."

"Do you know if they have any breaks on the MGM bomber case yet?" Greg asked.

"Sorry," Harriet replied. "I don't have much time to watch the news, but they haven't said anything about that yet."

"Would you call my friends in?" Greg asked. "Tell them I want to speak with them."

Harriet nodded, happy to help. "I'll make the call right away. They'll be happy to know you're coherent."

"Thank you, Harriet," Greg said with a flirtatious grin. She simply rolled her eyes and left the room.


	6. The Ace of Spades

_**Author's Note:**_ This chapter and the next jump around a little. But finally, we get some answers. And I'll come back at you at the end of this chapter. ;o)

* * *

Chapter Six: The Ace of Spades

Three weeks and both of their investigations had come to a standstill. Archie was still working on the footage from what Grissom believed to be a forged security tape. They couldn't bring Alex in unless they could prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the tape was a fake. In the meantime, all Grissom could do was go over the evidence he had again and again, hoping that maybe he had missed something the first twelve times he did it. It was impossible to leave the MGM bomber case as unsolved with all the media coverage they were getting. The sheriff would never allow it. But other than the potential lead on Alex Spade, Grissom and Brass had both run into dead ends. All the evidence just led them in circles. And as for Greg, all attempts on his life had halted for the past three weeks, but they were no closer to finding out why someone had cared enough to try and kill him three times in one day.

As he stared at the paperwork which seemed to be multiplying on his desk as if it were a family of frisky rabbits, his phone began to ring and he answered it. "Grissom."

"Mr. Grissom, this is Alice from Desert Palms, I'm calling on behalf of Dr. Latham and Nurse Becker. She told me to tell you that Greg Sanders is awake and coherent and asking to speak with you."

Grissom's heart leapt into his throat. "Uh… thank you, we'll be right over." He hung up and paged his coworkers. Nick and Sara were out in the field, but they would drop everything for this. Catherine was in court, but she should be getting out soon, and Warrick was reexamining the bomb parts from their ongoing investigation, trying to find anything unique about the generic design. For the first time in three weeks, Grissom decided that the MGM bombing case could wait.

Mindy poked her head in his office. "We ran the chalk _again_, just like you asked and just like I told you, it's just limestone, plain and simple. Store-bought. And more common than the cold virus. Just like your bomb parts, which, Warrick told me to tell you, he's given up on."

Grissom didn't reply to this, too busy reorganizing the papers on his desk excitedly as he grabbed his coat, getting ready to go. He was too elated to be brought down by Mindy's negative attitude today.

She noticed his frantic behavior and watched him quietly a moment. Grissom was slightly surprised that she didn't get annoyed that he hadn't replied. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. More sincere, and far less caustic. "Any word on Greg yet?" She asked him that question every day when she came into work. And for once, Grissom finally had an answer for her.

"He's awake and he wants to talk," he told her happily. "I was just about to head over there with the others. You, uh, can come if you want." Grissom wasn't looking forward to being stuck in a car with Mindy all the way to the hospital, but she had seemed genuinely concerned for Greg over the past three weeks, and he owed her that much.

She smiled appreciatively at him. "Oh, that would be… real great," she said.

"Good," Grissom replied. "Then let's get going."

* * *

Grissom and Mindy arrived at the hospital first, followed swiftly by Brass, Nick, Catherine, Warrick and Sara. They all gathered outside Greg's room before entering. Grissom lingered behind and entered last. 

"Hey guys," Greg said with a smile. "Long time no see."

"No kidding," Warrick laughed. "At last you're no longer speaking in tongues. How you doing there, Greggo?"

"Eh, I'll survive," he replied, trying to act cool by waving his hand dismissively. But it hurt so he flinched and then smiled at his idiocy. He arched his neck to look behind Nick at Grissom and Mindy who were lingering in the back. "Hey, Grissom. Did you have any trouble finding the room at all?"

"I'm sorry?" Grissom asked, stepping forward.

"Harriet tells me she's never heard of you," Greg replied. "_Mindy_ has been by more than you, and she's a stone-cold bitch. No offense," he added as an afterthought, without an ounce of remorse.

Mindy shrugged. "No one compliments me better than you do, Batman," she replied.

Grissom avoided Greg's eyes. "Greg, it's not that I didn't want to—"

"He's been working your case day and night trying to solve it, Greg," Nick stepped in to defend their supervisor. "Really, I haven't seen him leave the lab in three weeks for _anything_, not even a lunch break. He smells like it, too." Grissom shot him a look, but Nick just laughed.

"Well, did all that time in the lab help any?" Greg asked. "Do you guys know anything I don't know about what happened to me?"

"We have an idea," Grissom said with a small smile. "But we were hoping you could give us a better one, actually," Grissom replied. "You've mentioned you remembered some things, but never told us what they were."

Slowly, Greg nodded. "It's not much," he said. "Snippets of conversation. Names… no faces though. Except for one. Sylvia… She has long black hair and a pale face. I think… I think maybe she was hurt…"

Nick and Grissom exchanged looks, but it was Warrick who spoke. "Greg, remember that woman I told you about at the pizzeria? The one that wasn't killed in the explosion?"

Greg nodded. "Yeah, you said she was protected from it and the bruising was post mortem so…" All of a sudden, he began to catch on. "Why…?"

"Well, her name was Sylvia Kent," Warrick explained. "It was her blood you were covered in."

Greg frowned, a detail from his dream floating back to him. "Not blood, but paint…" he muttered. "Paint from someone else's canvas that I was stupid enough to touch…"

"Greg…?" Nick said slowly. "Is that you or the drugs talking?"

Greg shook his head to clear it. "Sorry, thinking out loud. OK, well I guess that explains why her name keeps popping up in my head. But there are a few others swimming around in my unconscious. A guy they called Ace, and… Shannon."

Mindy started at the names, then her eyes darted to Grissom, but Grissom seemed consumed by his own thoughts.

"There was a prostitute named Shannon at the hotel…" Catherine said slowly. "Shannon Dowling, high class. Your ex-girlfriend?"

The color drained from Greg's face. He _knew_ her voice had sounded familiar! "Yeah!" he said suddenly. "Hell yeah, that was her! I knew I recognized that voice from somewhere. And she was worried I could identify her too. Damn… Shannon Dowling? I should have known, she's more slippery than a soaped up fish."

"I'll pull her in now," Brass said, putting his phone to her ear. "We interviewed her before. She had an alibi, but she could probably link us to someone who doesn't. Catherine, you want to help me on this?"

"Sure," Catherine agreed, and she and Brass left the room swiftly.

"Ace of Spades…" Grissom said suddenly, coming out of his reverie.

"What did you say?" Sara asked.

Grissom looked at her. "It's Alex Spade's nickname." Chills ran down his spine as he turned to Greg excitedly. "Greg, can you describe this person at all?" he said. "Anything, _anything_ at all?"

Greg strained to remember, and then suddenly the tiniest insignificant detail came back to him. "He has gray eyes!" he exclaimed happily. "And a mole on his right cheek."

Grissom was so exuberant that he finally had something substantial to pull Alex Spade in on he clapped his hands together. He looked at the others. "Nick, Warrick, come with me," he said. "We're going to have a little chat with Alex Spade." They both nodded and left, leaving Sara and Mindy alone with Greg.

Mindy shuffled awkwardly in place as she looked up at Sara. "Hey, um… how about you go get yourself some coffee? I want to talk to Greg for a moment."

"The officers outside are on break," Sara said. "I want to hang around until they come back."

"I'm armed and dangerous," Mindy assured her. "And there hasn't been an attempt on his life in three weeks. I'll protect him. Promise."

Sara glanced at Greg nervously before reluctantly obliging as she left the room. Mindy walked over to Greg's bed and pulled up a chair.

"Hey, Batman," she said with a weak smile.

"I didn't know you cared, Mindy," Greg replied.

"Oh, I don't," she told him, sounding sincere.

But Greg laughed at the joke. "Liar. Harriet says you've been in here on multiple occasions, checking up on me, asking if I'd mentioned you…"

"Well…?" Mindy asked, her tone somewhat seductive. "Did you?"

"I had a dream about you," Greg told her in a whisper. "We were in an art gallery. You were gorgeous, you had on this slinky black dress… You were trying to tell me something. Something I couldn't really remember…"

She smiled at him and opened her mouth to speak when her phone rang. She reached for it and answered it quickly, rising to her feet. " Shannon," she said into the phone.

Greg's heart stopped as his eyes went wide.

* * *

When Sofia got the call from Brass, she was already at the MGM and had Shannon Dowling directly in her sights at the lounge. She quickly strode over to her as she laughed and drank cocktails. She was on the phone with someone else, probably another client, by the time Sofia arrived. 

"Shannon Dowling, you're under arrest for the kidnap and attempted murder of Greg Sanders."

She blinked at Sofia as a frown wrinkled her otherwise flawless features. "Honey, I'm going to have to call you back." She looked up at Sofia. "What's this about?"

"Get up," Sofia ordered.

She obliged, but protested. "OK, but you said I killed someone? That's… not what I do, honey. I make people feel alive."

Sofia opened her mouth to reply when there was a loud bang that came from one of the conference rooms by the front desk. Sofia exchanged glances with a few of the other cops there. She handed Shannon to one of them and then headed off towards the conference room with two other officers following her. She braced herself behind the door and held her gun at the ready before kicking it in.

Lying on the table was Alex "Ace" Spade with a bullet in his brain and a gun in his hand.

Taking a deep breath, Sofia quickly dialed Brass.

* * *

Brass was just about to get in his car when Sofia called him back and told him what had gone down at the MGM Grand. He looked at Catherine nervously. 

"Alex Spade is dead," he said to her.

"Dead?" Catherine was floored.

At that moment, Grissom, Warrick and Nick entered the parking lot and Brass called over to him. "Gil! Sofia called. When she was pulling in Shannon, Alex Spade was shot."

Grissom stopped in his tracks.

Nick was baffled. "That doesn't make any sense! He was the brains behind the operation, unless… Unless it was Dowling…"

"Not possible," Brass said. "Shannon Dowling was in the process of being arrested when it happened. Sofia said it looked like a suicide, and it very well could have been. There was no one else in the room when they got there, and only one way out."

"No," Grissom murmured. "No, he wouldn't kill himself, it just doesn't fit."

"It fits to me," Brass said. "He knew he was about to get caught so he offed himself."

"Don't you remember his attitude in that interrogation room?" Grissom asked. "He was cocky. Arrogant. But overall, even if he didn't own the hotel, he was filthy rich. He hired the slimiest lawyers in town; they could have gotten him out of anything. Why kill himself?"

Warrick asked anxiously, looking at all of them in turn. "Is there a suspect we haven't thought of?"

* * *

Greg stared at Mindy's back as she walked over to the door and locked it, still on the phone. "Oh, hey baby… Sorry for the formal hello, I thought you were the lab." She was nodding on the phone before turning around to face Greg, her expression blank. "Uh huh, I'm here with him right now. Don't worry baby, I'll take care of it… Already?" She looked annoyed. "Well _now_ who are we gonna pin it on?... Fine, OK, you're right, I'll figure something out. I'll meet you at our regular spot in half an hour… Don't worry about me, I can fix this. I'll just shoot a few rounds into the wall, make it look like someone else broke in here and held me hostage while they… You know damn well I can pull it off, I've pulled it off thus far, haven't I? I'll get a few tears going, get a little shaken up, and I'll do what we've been doing all along— pin it on some anonymous masked militant with a grudge… Yes, I know, dead as a doornail this time, no more mistakes… I know I can't work here anymore. They'll figure it out eventually, don't put it past my CSIs, but it's only a temporary smoke screen so we can escape unnoticed… Oh please, baby, they may be a lot of things, but they're not stupid. Except for when their emotions get in the way. Believe me, I know from experience. But that's why as soon as they're too blinded by emotions at the sight of his corpse, I'm gone. I'll just slip out of here and leave unnoticed. OK, I'm through with this bullshit. I want to run away with you. We'll disappear, and it will all be OK. Sylvia screwed up and we're the ones who have to pay the price… OK, baby. Love you too. Bye." 

She hung up the phone and fixed Greg with a steely gaze. Greg gaped at her, his mouth opening and closing as he searched for the words. His throat was constricting as the panic swelled in his chest. "Sh-Shannon? But I thought your name was Mindy?" His hand crept over to the call button.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Mindy said with a smirk. She pulled the call button out of reach and yanked the cord out of the wall. "Let's not be too hasty, shall we? I don't think I ever properly introduced myself to you, did I Batman? That wasn't very nice of me. The way I ordered you around like that. I'm sorry I treated you so badly after you'd had a rough morning, but you have to understand I was a little irritated to see you were still alive." The annoying thing about her tone of voice was that she sounded very sincere. "My name is Mindy Shannon. I'm a CSI Level 3, and I've been working on the dayshift for the Las Vegas Crime Lab for nine years now. Six of those years were spent cleaning up after the Spades and scattered organized crime syndicates. I gotta tell you, they pay a lot better than the state does."

"You're a dirty cop…" Greg muttered. "You cleaned up their crime scenes so no one would link them to it."

"And planted evidence," Mindy added. "Like at the MGM bomber case. And at your crime scene." She walked slowly over to Greg's bed. "Chalk. Didn't you wonder why? There was never a guy who trashed the MGM room. I did it myself. Our plan was to get some crazy homeless guy, plant his prints all over the room, and drug him and then leave him covered in chalk and blame the whole thing on him. Alex would ID him as the guy he argued with and all the evidence I planted would fall into place. Sylvia was supposed to do her part and pick up a vagrant, someone no one would know or miss, someone who wasn't quite all there in the head. Instead, she found you… I can't say I really blame her. I'd mistake you for a halfwit drifter if I were her too."

As Mindy told the story, Greg remembered it vaguely.

_He had been walking by the side of the road, searching for a cab. He called a local cab company, but they were already an hour late, and he wanted to go home. _

_A car had driven by and splashed him with mud. He waved his middle finger at them as they drove off. His clothes were filthy, and he was still drunk. He should have asked Nick to stay, or he should have gone with him instead of staying at the bar and trying to maybe get a few numbers. He had come out of there empty handed, three sheets to the wind, and to a broken down car. Not that he should have been driving anyway, in his condition. _

_And then, she pulled up to him on the side of the road. "Hey, there. Need a ride?" She looked innocent enough. Greg's smile must have reflected his relief because she laughed and opened the passenger side door. "Get in, you don't look too good." _

_"It feels like I've been walking this street for days…" His words were slurred and his voice was gruff. _

_"You look it," she said. "My name is Sylvia." _

_"Greg." _

_She nodded. "When's the last time you've had a nice warm shower, Greg?" _

_Greg thought back. He had been working too much overtime and laughed. "Oh God, if I could remember…" _

_She grinned at him, satisfied. "Don't worry," she said. "We'll take good care of you." _

_Greg had frowned at this comment and was about to say something when he was stabbed with a syringe and that was the last thing he knew…_

"She offered to give me a ride…" Greg said. "I thought she was being a nice person."

"You really are stupider than you look," Mindy said. "What kind of nice sweet girl picks up a filthy drunk man on the side of the road? Like _that_ didn't ring any bells?"

"But then… you couldn't blame it on me…" Greg said. "Because I was CSI. People knew me. Would miss me. They would know I wasn't the guy who trashed the room. And _you_ knew me because you'd been working my case!"

Mindy smirked. "So you _were_ awake when you threw up on my shoes," she said. "I thought I saw a flicker of light in your eyes. You owe me a new pair of Manolo Blahniks. Anyways, we had to get rid of you. Sylvia got all freaked out. 'We can't kill a cop!' she kept saying. So she didn't want to kill one guy, but she was OK with exploding a hotel lobby. What an airhead."

"Why blow up the MGM Grand anyway?" Greg asked. "What's in it for you?"

"We've been through this," Mindy said. "I don't commit the crime, I just clean up after it and collect my paycheck."

"So who _did_ blow up the MGM Grand?" Greg asked. "Alex Spade?"

"Good old Ace!" Mindy smirked. "A little grudge goes a long way, my friend."

"But… why?"

"Simply because he could," Mindy said. "The Spades are one of the richest families in Las Vegas. And when Jeremiah Spade died and Jack got everything, Alex was broke and pissed. And Jack has such a good heart, Alex _knew_ his good brother would bail him out again and again, for whatever he did."

"So he blew up the MGM Grand as a way to exploit his brother?" Greg thought that was the lamest reason to kill fifty people that he had ever heard. It made him want to vomit. "You work for some twisted people, Mindy."

"The world is _filled_ with twisted people, Greg!" Mindy snapped, irritated. He seemed to have struck a nerve. "And no matter _what_ you do or how _many_ you put away, they will still be there, breeding like roaches, falling through the cracks of the legal system. There comes a point when you realize, like I did, that you have to choose the lesser of two evils."

"And what's the lesser of two evils here, huh Mindy?" Greg demanded. "Help the man who killed fifty people or help put him away?"

She glared at him furiously. "You would _never_ understand the hell I've been through—"

"I don't _give_ a damn about the _hell_ you've been through!" Greg returned furiously. "I just give a damn about the hell _I've_ been through! And now, I find out that it's _your_ damn fault I'm in this fricking mess! If you think I'm gonna just lay down and let you kill me, you're wrong."

Her confidence returned as she saw him losing his temper. A creepy smile spread from ear to ear. "You have to understand, it's nothing… _personal_, Batman. I'm sorry Sylvia made a mistake and picked you up, I truly am. To be honest, you're really not a bad guy, and I don't generally kill people, _especially_ good guys. In fact, I _hate_ to kill you. I hate killers, Greg. And it's _very_ hard for me to do this."

"I have a feeling it'll hurt me more than it'll hurt you, Mindy," Greg spat out spitefully.

She laughed slightly and shook her head before continuing. "But I _will_ if it will save my own ass. It's survival of the fittest, Greg. Only one of us will come out of this alive."

* * *

Sara walked down the hall back towards Greg's room with coffee in hand. She had brought an extra one for Mindy, should she want it. Sara was surprised to see that Greg's guards weren't back yet and she rolled their eyes. _Slackers. They've been gone for an hour now_. She set down one of her cups of coffee and tried the door. It was locked. Frowning, she put down both cups and shook the door.

* * *

Mindy paid no heed to the rattling door as she began to walk around the room and towards Greg's bed casually as she continued talking. "It really was a shame what happened to Sylvia," she said, clicking her tongue in sarcastic regret. "I mean, she was such a pretty thing. I think she kind of had a thing for you, Batman." 

Greg fixed her with the most loathsome glare he could muster, as if simply by shooting daggers at her with his eyes he could stop her in her tracks. It was all he could do. His whole left side was battered and he couldn't feel half his body because of the morphine. He would be no match for her, and if he tried to run he'd just fall flat on his face. "I don't think I ever told you how much I really _hate_ that nickname," he said through gritted teeth.

Mindy casually played with the instruments by Greg's bed. She unplugged his respirator and took an extra pillow in her hands, tossing it into the air. "You caused us a _lot_ of trouble, Batman," she said, ignoring his earlier request to discontinue the loathsome nickname. "And all because she chose the wrong scapegoat. Do you just have this thing about not dying? I thought we stuck enough drugs in you to make Fat Albert pass out. But that was just one lucky break. You really dodged a bullet in that apartment, didn't you? Quite literally. And who do you have to thank for that? None but me, my friend."

Greg thought back to the incident in the apartment and recalled the reason he had turned was because Mindy had called his name. Otherwise, he wouldn't have turned around, and if he had been facing the window straight on, the bullet would have ripped through his heart, not the back of his shoulders.

"But… why?" he asked.

"Sheer stupidity," Mindy replied with a roll of her eyes. "I didn't know he was going to shoot _right at that moment_. Ace was a lot of things, but a good shot? He has terrible timing too. What a moron. I was going to throw some witty insult your way. I should have just kept my mouth shut. No— No!" She cried out, as though it just occurred to her. "I should have shot you myself when I had the chance!"

Greg blinked. "What?"

"Back at the MGM Grand in that hotel room," she explained. "Just like we killed Sylvia. I had my gun cocked at the ready too, but then Ace said, 'And how are you gonna explain _that_ one, Shannon? He shot _himself_ in the back?' He thought we could still use you. I knew it wouldn't work. But seriously, though, I thought that van would exterminate you once and for all. What is it with you and dying? Do you and the Grim Reaper just not get along? Do you piss _him_ off as much as you piss _me_ off?"

"Death and I are old pals," Greg said with a cocky grin. "He knows it's not my time to go yet."

"Oh you talk the talk," Mindy said with a smirk as she pulled at the pillow in her hand. She raised her eyebrows up and down twice as she approached the bed. "But do you walk the walk?"

* * *

_**Author's Note (cont'd):**_ OK, for the record-- I don't know about you guys, but I love Mindy. She was one of the first original characters for CSI I've written to be both loved and hated simultaneously, and I still think she's awesome, even after all I've revealed in this chapter, although I know a lot of you probably hate her (and I'm glad for that). Also, I found her to be a _lot_ of fun. Anyways, that was just my little Mindy tribute. Hope you enjoy the chapter and review. If you don't review, I'm stuck watching High School Musical with nothing interesting to read. Haha. 


	7. Mindy's Secret

_**Author's Note:**_ OK, so I'm a day late with this, and though I tend to be neurotic about being late with posting, I'm having a good time here in Texas chilling with folks. Hopefully I'll have the next chapter up within the next two days. There's only about a chapter or so left. :o) Thanks for reading, R&R, and while you may not sympathize with Mindy, maybe this chapter will help to explain her logic (or lack there of) a little bit.

* * *

Chapter Seven: Mindy's Secrets 

Brass tried to think. "Why couldn't we get Alex Spade the first time, anyway?" he asked Grissom. "Something about the picture, it didn't match, right?"

"Yeah," Grissom said dismissively. "Yeah, there was an issue with the…" he trailed off.

"What is it?" Nick asked.

"Nick…" Grissom said, remembering he had been there. "When you blew that picture up, was there a stuck pixel?"

Nick thought back before slowly shaking his head. "No, everything was clear…"

"Did Mindy leave the AV lab before you and Archie?" Grissom pressed.

Nick shook his head. "No, Archie was overdue for a break, and I was pissed so I needed to blow off some steam. She said she'd clean up… What?"

The wheels in Grissom's head were turning. He spun around to Brass. " Shannon…" he said. "It was never Shannon _Dowling_! Mindy's _last_ name is Shannon. She altered the picture!"

"So _she's_ the Shannon Greg remembers?" Warrick asked. "Not Shannon Dowling?"

"We've been chasing after the wrong whore," Catherine muttered bitterly.

They began heading quickly back towards the hospital. "I'm going to arrest her ass so fast…" Brass was muttering. "She was right under our noses this _whole time_?"

"She fooled us all, Jim," Grissom said. "Covering for Alex, and then… the surveillance video… She must have forged that too."

"Thank God Sara's in the room with them," Nick said. "I'd hate to think what she'd do if she ever had him alone."

* * *

"Greg?" Sara called. "Mindy?"

There was no answer. She shimmied the door a few more times, but it wouldn't budge. She called for a doctor who was passing in the hall.

"Excuse me," she said. "Is there a reason this door's locked?"

The doctor frowned at her. "No, it shouldn't be…" He fumbled in his pockets for a key but couldn't find one. He smiled up at Sara sheepishly. "I'll check the admit desk, I'll be right back."

As Sara frowned after him, she knew instinctively something was wrong. The doctors hadn't locked the door, which meant someone from the inside did, and this was gravely troubling.

She knocked again and this time, yelled loudly and authoritatively. She _knew_ she shouldn't have left Greg without the guards around! Where were they, anyway?

* * *

"Open this door _right now _or I will break it down, I'm warning you!"

Mindy looked over her shoulder lazily before turning back to Greg and holding the pillow under her chin. "Say goodnight, Batman," she said.

"Sara!" Greg screamed, but the last syllable was muffled as he inhaled cold cotton and immediately his lungs started contracting with the unexpected jolt. He struggled to find some source of air, anything, and knew that he should have saved his last gasp of air to take a deep breath instead of calling out the name of his coworker beyond the door. Had she even heard him? He tried to turn his head left, then right, searching for some sort of air pocket, but the pillow completely stifled him. His stinging lungs continued to contract and expand, his chest agonizingly trying to survive, but he began to feel dizzy, and his head began to tingle and he felt his mind trickling out of his ears. His chest was on fire, his head was ice cold as a dull ache began to encompass it he his struggling became weaker and weaker until—

There was a whack and then there was light again and Greg gulped in a mouth full of sweet crisp air, flooding his lungs and putting out the fire in his chest. His vision swirled before him and soon cleared and he saw that Sara had made good on her threat and broken the door down. The two women were now struggling with each other. It seemed that Sara had pulled Mindy off of him just in time. As his head spun and the hint of a headache tugged on the edge of his consciousness, Greg watched them fight in fascination. Mindy reached for her gun but Sara knocked it away clear across the room. Mindy threw a punch at Sara who ducked and elbowed Mindy in the stomach. As Mindy doubled over, Sara rose her knee up and hit the redhead in the jaw.

"Sara…?" Greg blinked.

At his voice she looked up, and was distracted for just enough time for Mindy to charge at her knees and knock her off her feet. The redhead straddled the brunette and struck her clear across the face. Sara's nails dug into Mindy's wrists, but the girl continued to struggle. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Greg knew that had this been any other situation, he would have found this brawl to be incredibly sexy.

As it was, Greg was too dizzy, and too much aware of the gravity of the situation to be even remotely aroused. Sara made a swing at Mindy's already bleeding jaw, but the redhead caught her wrist and pinned both her hands back behind the brunette's head. She hit Sara again across the face, and this time the brunette spluttered and coughed, spitting blood out on the floor. Mindy raised her hand to hit Sara again when there was a shout from the door.

"Freeze, LVPD!"

Both Greg and Mindy looked up, neither one having noticed Brass in the doorway, his gun trained on the redhead. Breathing hard and bleeding from the lip, Mindy slowly raised her hands.

"Get _off_ of her," Grissom snarled from behind Brass.

Her mouth partially open, Mindy cooperated, getting to her feet as Sara scrambled out from under her. Brass quickly stepped into the room and forcefully grabbed Mindy, pushing her up against the wall as he pulled her arms behind her back and cuffed her. "Mindy Shannon, you are under arrest for the abduction and attempted murder of Greg Sanders, for aiding and abetting known criminals, for the bombing of the MGM Grand lobby, and, what the hell, we'll throw assaulting an officer on the list too just for kicks." He glanced at Sara, who had sat up and was wiping the blood away from her mouth on her sleeve. "Come on, let's go." He pushed Mindy in front of him, and the others at the door cleared the way as Brass led her outside. They all filed in, and Nick helped Sara back to her feet.

"How'd you guys know to come back?" Greg asked, still a little dazed.

"We just knew," Catherine said. "We can explain later."

Greg was panting. "Well whatever, I'm just glad you did." He looked at Sara. "Thanks, you came just in time."

But Sara shook her head and frowned in distaste, before spitting out more blood apathetically. She reminded Greg of an experienced boxer who was used to bleeding on a daily basis. She rubbed her cheek. "Nah," she said, stretching out her jaw. "I shouldn't have left you alone with her in the first place. I'm sorry, Greg."

"Hey, it's OK," Greg said. "To be honest, I thought she was going to try and seduce me. And to be _completely _honest, I was hoping she would. And if you_ really_ want to know what I was hoping she'd do—"

"There's no need for _complete_ honesty, Greg," Catherine said, cutting him off just in time.

"All this time she'd been worried about you, asking about you…" Warrick said, shaking his head. "All she wanted to know was if you remembered her or not. And she figured she'd kill you before you did."

"There's someone else involved!" Greg said, suddenly remembering. "I think Alex Spade called her or something, she was talking to him on the phone, he was supposed to meet her somewhere in half an hour."

"Alex Spade is dead, Greg," Grissom said. "It's over."

Greg wasn't so sure. "But… he was going to meet her…"

"We'll keep our guys around the hospital and keep an eye out for anyone suspicious," Grissom assured him. "And we'll post new guys at your door. The ones here before were knocked out and dragged into an empty exam room. That's why they were gone for so long. They say Mindy did it by herself."

"She is pretty strong," Sara said, stretching her neck out and moving her jaw around some more. "I could believe that she took out two cops."

"Something's missing…" Greg said, shaking his head. There was something strange about the tone of voice Mindy had used on the phone. It hadn't been the same way she had spoken to Ace in the hotel room.

"Whatever it is, Greg, we'll figure it out," Grissom assured him, his voice kind. "But for now, you need to get some rest. Take it easy. I think you've been through enough for…"

"A year?" Nick supplied. Grissom nodded at him appreciatively.

"So what's that supposed to mean?" Greg asked. "I get a year of amnesty, and then come New Years I'm fair game for bad luck again?"

"That's not exactly how karma works, Greg…" Sara said with a smile.

"Screw karma," Greg said, looking annoyed. "If karma really worked, I'd be in a hot tub right now with all the winners of Playboy's Playmate of the Month from January to December of last year."

They all laughed lightly. "Good to see you haven't lost your sense of humor, Greg," Warrick said.

"Never say die, my friend," Greg replied.

"Stop talking so much and get some sleep," Catherine ordered. "Jeez, we get a reprieve for three weeks and then the second you're coherent again, _blah blah blah_…"

"Oh, don't pretend you didn't miss it, Catherine," Greg said slyly. "Harriet told me how you were worried about me."

Catherine folded her arms defensively. "Worried, yes. Miss you? Well, you're sick so I'm just going to be nice and not answer that question."

Greg smirked at Grissom, knowingly. "Yup. She missed me."

"Sleep," Nick said sternly. "Now."

Greg held his hands out to them palms up and shrugged. "Hey! You guys keep saying sleep but you're not _leaving_. I don't like people watching me sleep. It reminds me of Freddy Kruger."

Grissom nodded at his friends. "He's right, you guys. Sara, let's get you checked out by a doctor." She began to protest, but Grissom held out his hands. "I won't have your jaw bleeding all over crime scenes and contaminating everything; you look like you may need stitches. As for the rest of you, we have work to do."

"Namely processing Alex Spade's crime scene!" Greg called at their retreating backs. "Check his hands for GSR and don't forget to make sure that the wound is consistent with—"

"We _know_ how to do our _jobs_, Greg!" Sara said looking over her shoulder at him as she stood in the doorway. "In fact, if I recall correctly, _we_ showed _you_ how to do it."

"And the apprentice definitely became the master in that instance!" Greg returned.

Sara gaped, visibly offended. "Did you just say—"

"Come on, Sara," Warrick said, pulling her by the arm and out the door.

Nick was the last to leave as he shook his head and laughed quietly to himself. Greg had one last word for him.

"Nick?" His friend turned to show that Greg had his attention. "I am _never_ drinking again."

Nick smirked. "Liar," he said, before he, too, disappeared out the door.

The funny thing about Nick's statement was that it was true. The second after Greg had made his vow, he had a killer craving for a rum and coke.

* * *

Sofia was the one to interrogate Mindy Shannon. She had personally asked Brass for the privilege. She glared at the redhead who sat across from her, a lawyer stoutly by her side.

"I just want to know one thing, Mindy, because I have known you for nine years, so tell me," Sofia said softly. "For exactly how _long_ has this been going on?"

Mindy shrugged, in her characteristically apathetic way. "Do you really want me to answer that, Sofia? I don't see how it pertains to the case at hand."

Sofia slammed her fist on the table. "I worked right _next_ to you, Mindy! On some pretty high profile cases, too! Did you plant evidence at _every_ crime scene? Are all the cases you solved false? I swear, for every innocent man you put behind bars—"

Mindy cut her off with a barking laugh. "Innocent men? OK, Sofia, the men I put away may not have necessarily committed the crimes they've been charged with, but that doesn't mean they weren't _crooks_."

"_You're_ a crook, Mindy!" Sofia snapped. "You _work_ for crooks!" Her eyes seemed to widen in realization. "The Sporelli case three years ago… You didn't…"

Mindy rolled her eyes. "Frank Sporelli's a lot of things, but a good client ain't one of them. He didn't kill his whore, OK? I worked that scene _honestly_."

"Well how the hell do you expect me to know anymore, Mindy?" Sofia asked. "Every single one of the cases you were on now has to be reevaluated. Jesus _Christ_, Mindy, do you have any idea the kind of hell you're going to put our department through? Not to mention the media scrutiny. And then… And then you go after _Greg_? Why Greg?"

"Because he was _there_," Mindy hissed. "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the universe has a twisted sense of humor. You think I knew they had him when Ecklie put me on his case? Hell _no_. I only found out later, when I went to collect. It wasn't my idea to abduct a _CSI_! That was Sylvia's stupid mistake."

"And it was only _then_ that you helped them forge evidence," Sofia said sarcastically. "Because that makes it _so _much better."

Mindy sighed and rolled her eyes. "You don't understand," she said, leaning across the table. "Sometimes, a girl's gotta take care of her own, that's all. It was nothing personal against Batman, I just— I just had cover my own ass. And get paid."

"That's what your _job_ is for, Mindy," Sofia said, sounding exasperated. "How long has this been going on? How many _cases_ do we need to look _into_ now?"

Mindy looked at her lawyer, who nodded. "Six years."

Sofia fell into the chair across from Mindy and shook her head as she thought back to six years ago. All of a sudden, she remembered, and immediately understood. She looked up at Mindy again, her eyes deep with bitter disappointment. "Anthony Fascitelli. I knew that would break you."

Mindy slammed the table in fury as she launched herself at Sofia, but her lawyer, and another cop held her back.

"Mindy, _sit down_!" her lawyer hissed.

Slowly, she did, but she didn't calm down. "He didn't _break_ me, Sofia, I don't _break_ easily."

Sofia looked down at the table and sighed, the first sign of pity emanating from her blue eyes. "I am… so sorry we couldn't get him, Mindy. I really, truly am. But don't you understand that it's people like _him_ that you're working for now?"

"I'm working _against_ people like him," Mindy snapped. "I've put more rapists behind bars in the past six years than you have in your whole career, Detective. Sure, maybe not for the innumerous rapes they committed and weaseled their way out of, but for the ironic crimes one of their enemies committed and blamed them for."

"You came out of that whole business wrong somehow," Sofia noted. "I remember you. You used to be a good CSI, Mindy. And then Anthony Fascitelli came and—"

"Stop it," Mindy said through gritted teeth, her voice low. "Just stop it. Stop _talking_ about him like he has some sort of _power_ over me. He doesn't. He doesn't."

"But he does, doesn't he?" Sofia asked quietly. "And that's what upsets you the most. Because you were young and idealistic and he exploited that and it made you bitter and cynical and… and a murderer. He turned you into everything you hate, Mindy."

Mindy looked at her lawyer, the question evident in her eyes before she even voiced it. "Well aren't you going to do anything about this?"

The lawyer took a deep breath then turned to Sofia. "Detective Curtis, could we maybe stick to the charges at hand? You're upsetting my client."

Sofia said nothing, but simply stared at Mindy until the redhead broke their gaze and looked down at the table.

"I don't murder people," Mindy whispered.

"No," Sofia returned icily. "You just cover for them."

"Oh you just _shut up_!" Mindy groaned. "Acting all sanctimonious, like you've _never_ wanted to get your hands on the ones that got away—"

"Yeah, of course I have!" Sofia cried. "And now I find out that you're the one _helping_ them get away! You've taken the law into your own hands, Mindy, and that's not for just you on your own to decide. You aren't God. You can't decide who lives and who dies, who should go to jail and who shouldn't, not all by yourself! You didn't used to be like this, you didn't used to _kill_ people!"

Mindy rolled her eyes. "Look, I don't _murder_ people, alright, not unless they leave me no alternative and generally speaking they're all bastards anyway who deserve to die."

Her lawyer took this opportunity to break in. "Mindy, I would advise you to—"

"Oh, kiss my ass, you law-school dropout," Mindy snapped. "You're only here because the state put you here."

"Is Greg an asshole who deserves to die?" Sofia asked quietly.

Mindy looked over at Sofia with wide eyes and calmed down, her voice soft once more at the mention of Greg. "I told you. It wasn't anything personal. Greg is a good guy, I just… I needed to make sure he didn't talk. I needed to make sure that we were safe."

"And if you had succeeded, what then?" Sofia asked. "Would you have run? Go to Mexico? Because your job would have been over."

"We were going to disappear…" Mindy muttered. "We were going to go as far away as possible where you would _never_ find us and we would be _safe_."

"You and Alex?" Sofia asked.

Mindy looked up at the query, her eyes startled momentarily, before she slowly nodded. "Yes. Me and… Me and Alex."

"Alex Spade is dead, Mindy," Sofia said evenly.

Mindy looked down at the table again. "Oh."

"And believe me," she added, her voice low, "if you had succeeded in killing Greg Sanders, you would have nowhere to run to, and nowhere to hide, because we would have hunted you down like the scared little bitch that you are and we would have _slaughtered_ you for what you did to him."

Mindy swallowed and looked up at Sofia again to see her eyes were deathly serious. "It's touching," she said, "that you have such conviction for your friend. That you would go to the ends of the earth to see that whoever wronged him was punished. I only wish, Sofia, that you had such loyalty to me six years ago."

"Mindy—" the lawyer began. "I thought we wanted to stay off of this topic."

But Mindy was angry again. "No, no, if she wants to talk about it, why the hell not? It was _your_ case, Sofia. You _knew_ he did it. I damn well identified the bastard for you, and yet you _still_ couldn't get him because— what was it? My testimony was _tainted_ by post traumatic stress? Bull shit! He got out of it because he _paid_ his way out of it because Anthony Fascitelli can pay his way out of _anything_ in this city and you _knew_ it! But did you hunt _him_ down like the scared little bitch _he_ was? Did you make any promises to _me_ that the sins committed against me would be avenged? He _raped_ me, Sofia, and all you could say to me was 'I'm sorry, Mindy.' Like sorry _ever_ cuts it."

"You used to believe in what we were doing here, Mindy," Sofia said quietly. "And I miss that. I miss the you who wasn't _angry_ all the time. And believe me when I tell you that I hate Anthony Fascitelli for stealing that from you more than anything else in the world. More than I hate you. Because you're just a product of his cruelty. You used to be a human being once, Mindy, but now what are you? Now what can you honestly tell me that you're proud of?"

Mindy stared at Sofia for a long time. "This side of the law betrayed me once, Sofia," she said. "And I would be damned if it happened again. So I betrayed you first."

Sofia rose to her feet and glared at Mindy. "Take her away," she said. "You used to impress me, Mindy. Now you just depress me."

An officer pulled Mindy to her feet and she scowled at Sofia. "Well aren't _we_ witty?" she snapped as the officer pulled her away, followed by her flushed lawyer.

Brass entered the room and looked at Sofia, who fell into a chair. She slowly shook her head.

"I worked beside her for seven years," she said as she raked her hands through her hair. "You'd think in all that time, I would have noticed…"

Brass gave her a half smile and an equally unhelpful shrug. "Sometimes, people change so slowly, but so much that when we finally realize what's going on, we don't recognize them anymore."

Sofia looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and gave him a tired smile. "It's just… she really did used to be a really good kid. You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you, but… when she was a rookie, she used to be a lot like Greg."

"You're right," Brass said, taking a seat across from Sofia. "I don't believe you."

Sofia closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands as her elbows rested on the table. "Nine years ago, she was young and naïve and strongly believed that there was a shred of decency in everyone she met, even the criminals she put away. She would laugh— oh God how she would laugh! At the craziest things, too, like, uh… Like when she was flirting with the lab techs, or when she was making un of herself, or when she was making a bad pun about a dead body. She would turn up the volume on the radio and belt out the songs, always off key but never caring. She would even sing show tunes at crime scenes while she collected evidence from a mutilated corpse! She made… inappropriately hilarious jokes and I would _always_ stifle my laughter and pretend she wasn't funny. She was the rookie. The baby. And we teased her, and we loved her, and we… We couldn't protect her from him. And… she lost all her optimism after that. She stopped laughing. She turned off the radio and said it was distracting. She stopped singing. But worst of all, she stopped seeing the good in people, and I guess that pretty soon, all she saw was the bad in everyone."

She looked up at Brass through her fingers, which slowly slid down her face to her mouth as she took a deep breath and shook her head, her hands falling to the table like deadweight. "I don't want anything like that to happen to Greg, Jim. If only I had recognized it in Mindy sooner, maybe I could have stopped her before she was too far gone. Before she was so lost in the dark she couldn't find her way back out again. I've seen it in Greg's eyes, too. After a particularly ugly scene. After the beating he took last year, after Demetrius James… I see the darkness in his eyes, just like I see it in Mindy's, and I don't want him to fall as far and as hard as she did."

Brass calmly reached out and put his hand over hers. "Mindy never had closure," he said. "She was too stubborn to confide in anyone or reach out for help. She never moved on, and it poisoned her. And that's tragic, Sofia, but it's not your fault. As for Greg, he has plenty of people to look out for him, and he's not afraid. He's had closure, for all the things he's seen, and it's just not his style to be anything other than what he is. He'll get over this, like he's gotten over the beating and everything else that has happened to him, and you'll see. He'll be OK again. I don't know anyone who can bounce back better than he can."

He winked at her, and Sofia had to laugh. She knew that he was right. 


	8. Jack of Spades

**_Author's Note:_** I'm a bad person. Sorry I didn't get this update to you guys earlier, I was (and still am) severely unhappy with this ending. But as it is, I am far more interested in the story I'm writing after this (which unfortunately is not Nevada Devil either, but something equally as juicy and that's all I'm going to say about that). I've been distracted for the past week or so, chilling with Texans and trying to come up with a more satisfactory ending for y'all, but this'll have to do. Enjoy, and expect me back tomorrow with a deleted scene and more special features from me.

* * *

Chapter Eight: The Jack of Spades

He had been working a completely unrelated case when he stumbled across Brass and Sofia in one of the layout rooms. He cocked an eyebrow at them curiously as he nursed his newly brewed coffee. He coughed to get their attention and they both looked up at him.

"Gil," Brass said, shuffling some papers. "Good, I'm glad you're here."

"Jim…" Grissom replied slowly. He looked at the blonde detective. " Sofia, did you miss working in the lab so much you decided to move back in?"

"No, we were looking for you," Sofia answered, striding over to Grissom with a file in hand. "Remember how Greg kept telling us there was something off about Mindy's last phone call?"

"I thought we closed this case," Grissom said, looking from one detective to the other.

"Well, I ran the records from her cell," Sofia continued. "The kid was right. It came from the penthouse at the MGM Grand mere _minutes_ after Alex Spade shot himself."

" Sofia, we know that Alex Spade _did_ shoot himself," Grissom said slowly. "The directionality of the bullet, GSR on his hands— he was the _only one in the room_."

"I know, I know, I know," Sofia said quickly. "But listen to this. Brass and I subpoenaed Jeremiah Spade's last will and testament. Everything _didn't_ go to Jack Spade."

Grissom frowned. "So Alex had something after all?"

"No, Alex got nothing," Brass said. "But _so did Jack_."

"I'm confused…" Grissom said. "So… who got control of the money?"

Sofia smirked. "Elizabeth Virginia Spade," she replied.

"Jeremiah Spade had a daughter?"

"Once," Brass said. "She died thirty years ago when she was six years old."

"He left his hotel in the charge of a dead six-year-old," Grissom deadpanned.

"It was a codename," Brass explained. "After further digging, we found that there's an account in the Cayman Islands under that same name and if anything were to happen to Old Man Spade, all the assets in that account were to be frozen and redistributed among select charities."

"This is according to what now?"

"His lawyer," Sofia put in. "As for the hotel, control of the MGM Grand was to be equally distributed among the top share holders and this did _not_ include the Spade boys."

"So why did Spade cut his sons out of his will?" Grissom asked. "And more importantly, how did Jack get in control of it?"

"I can't tell you why," Brass said. "But I can tell you how. Jack hacked into the account in the Caymans before they had heard of his father's death and took out every cent, using it to buy up shares like crazy and soon enough, he had forty-six percent of the company, which made him the top share holder of the company and thus legally in charge of the MGM Grand, as to his father's will. But this left him completely broke, as you can imagine."

Sofia handed Grissom a contract. "The pay off from the insurance policy on the hotel, should substantial damage be caused to infrastructure of the building due to earthquakes, floods, terrorist attacks, etcetera, was more than three times what was originally in the Elizabeth Spade account."

Grissom fell into a nearby chair. "My God, how the _hell_ did we miss this before?"

"We were too focused on Alex," Brass replied. "And probably just like they'd hoped, too busy fussing about Greg to give Jack any real attention."

"Well can we pull him in now?" Grissom exclaimed. "Where the hell is he?"

"We don't know," Brass said. "Believe me, I've searched for him high and low, but no one in the hotel has seen him since Alex's death, and he's ditched any way we could previously contact him. His lawyers' mouths are staying stubbornly shut. Even a warrant for his arrest isn't pulling him in any faster."

"There's one more thing," Sofia said. "Mindy wasn't the only person to receive a call from the penthouse that night. Alex Spade also had one right before he killed himself."

"What do you suppose went on in _that_ conversation?" Grissom asked.

"I guess we can only speculate," Sofia replied with a shrug.

* * *

She sat quietly in her cell. She didn't know what she was waiting for, but she knew that she would find out soon enough. He had told her to be patient. He had told her that as long as she kept her mouth shut, everything would be copasetic. She didn't know anything beyond that, but she knew she needed to trust him. He was the only man in the world now that she trusted. Because Mindy Shannon had a big problem with most men. But he was different.

Sylvia had been messy enough, but she could have been easily blamed on Greg, along with the bombing, if only Greg hadn't been so trusted by his colleagues. But then Alex had been the perfect fall guy. All they had to do was kill him and it would have been clean. They would have gone to Mexico. They would have disappeared.

They still would.

When the guards came to her cell, she knew what was going on. "Mindy Shannon, you have a visitor."

She looked up at him blankly before getting to her feet and following the guard down the hall and into the visitor's room. And there he was, sitting with a smile on the other side of the glass. He was clean-shaven, his hair was neatly trimmed, and he wore a suit with a red tie. His eyes were a deep gray as they watched her take her seat. Just like his brother. She picked up the phone, which he already held to his ear.

"Hello," she said simply. Her voice was soft and velvety and as smug as always.

The corner of his mouth curled into an equally arrogant smirk. "Hey, beautiful."

"You came back for me," she said, ecstatic. "You actually came _back_ for me. No one's ever come through for me before like you have today."

"Hey, you're my queen, baby, I'd do anything for you." he said. "You ever doubted I'd come?"

"I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to show up here, all suit-and-tie and all," she said. "I mean, what if they found you out?"

"They won't," he said. "At least, not unless you told them…"

"I'd never tell," she said proudly.

"I didn't think you would, angel cakes," he replied. "You were always perfect in everything you did."

"Still, though," Mindy pressed. "Don't you think it's a little risky, waltzing in here like you own the place, in front of all these cops?"

His smirk widened. "Mindy, sweetie, I _do_ own the place." She was flabbergasted and he noticed. "Now don't look so surprised, angel cakes. You don't think you're the _only_ member of the LVPD in my pocket do you? Hell, half of the people in here know _exactly_ what I'm about to do and they're not going to do a damn thing to stop it."

She quivered with anticipation, her excitement evident in her wide green eyes as she giggled like a little girl on Christmas Eve. "And what exactly _are_ you about to do, baby?"

He put on a dark pair of sunglasses and then reached into his jacket. "Why, get you out of here, of course."

Her eyes widened with glee as she saw the hint of plastic behind his lapel before in one swift motion he raised his arm into the air and threw the item in his hand down onto the floor. Mindy was blinded momentarily and shut her eyes. The alarm sounded. There was the crashing sound of shattering of glass and her hair was sprinkled with crystals. The next thing she knew, someone was taking her by the arm and guiding her over the table and through the smashed window. The light began to dim and though her vision was laced with white and her pupils were the size of pin pricks, she blinked repetitively to try and adjust. An alarm was sounding, but she held on tightly to his hand as he led her to a window, and then—

"Do you trust me?"

She rubbed her eyes. "What?"

"You better," he said. "Because there's no time for second guessing." And with these words, she felt his hands on her back as he pushed her and she stumbled over a windowsill and out, tumbling to the ground below…

* * *

When Greg was informed about what had happened at the prison, they hadn't known exactly what to expect. Nick and Grissom stood there, waiting with bated breath for some sort of a response from him.

"You're joking," he deadpanned, his face completely blank.

Nick and Grissom glanced at each other before they each shook their heads. "Flash grenade went off in the visitors' area. He had it on him and it was plastic, so the metal detectors completely missed it."

Greg cocked an eyebrow. "Wait—he was in a place with like… fifty or more cops just _standing_ there, with metal detectors and screening devices and _hundreds_ of criminals, _and_ we've been looking for him for weeks and _nobody_ was even the least bit suspicious?"

Grissom let out a long, tired sigh as he folded his arms and stared at the ground. "We fear there's been an infiltration of our ranks of the worst kind, Greg."

"And in English that means…"

"Corruption," Nick elaborated. "Dirty money, just floating around among the folks we work with. After Mindy was uncovered, Internal Affairs dug much deeper, and exposed five other members of the LVPD in Spade's employ, two of which were detectives Brass worked with on a daily basis and one of which was a judge. We think his influence even reached the prison at which Mindy was being held."

"But why risk everything just to break her out?" Greg asked, and then suddenly he answered his own question as understanding dawned and his eyes widened in realization. "Oh… He… He's in love with her."

Nick and Grissom were both confused. "What?" Nick said.

"The way she talked to him on the phone, I knew it was different…" Greg explained. "With Alex, she was harsh— all business. But with him, she called him baby, told him not to worry… But I thought he was going to hang her out to dry, save his own skin. But he loves her. That's interesting…"

"Interesting?" Nick sounded like that word was the farthest from his mind. "Disturbing is more like it."

But Greg's brow was furrowed as he shook his head, his gaze wandering off somewhere out the window. A small smile tugged at his lips. "Yeah," he said. "I…" he started laughing and Grissom and Nick exchanged worried looks, wondering if he was on the drugs again. But then, he sobered up and smiled as he looked at the ceiling. "It just makes so much _sense_ now, _everything_, and nothing has made sense to me for so long I can't shake this feeling that one of you has some huge revelation to make that's going to totally confuse me again."

"You're right," Grissom said. "Greg, I have a confession to make—"

"He's gay," Nick blurted out.

Slowly, Grissom turned and looked at Nick as though he were the stupidest person in the world. Nick glanced sideways at Grissom, but then back to Greg, who's mouth was slightly open as he gave the pair a blank look. And then Nick couldn't hold it any longer and he began to snicker. Grissom rolled his eyes.

"_Actually_," he said. "I wanted to apologize for not recognizing Mindy's behavior sooner. This whole fiasco could have been avoided with more vigilance."

"_More_?!" Nick said. "Grissom, you spent every _waking_ moment in the lab, I don't think it's possible to have _more_."

"Wait…" Greg said slowly, the blank look still firmly on his face as he looked from one to the other. "So… you're gay? For real?"

Grissom scowled as Nick started laughing again. "No, I'm not gay," Grissom said. "Just…" he sighed. "I'm glad to see that you two are back to joking around. Even if it is at my expense."

Greg wasn't laughing, but he simply gave Grissom an apologetic shrug. "That's a shame," he said. "Because I throw one hell of a coming out party."

"Well who knows," Grissom said, looking at Nick who was still snickering into his hand. "Maybe one day we can throw one for Nick."

Nick sobered up instantly and shot Grissom a look momentarily, before a smile tugged at his lips. "You're good," he said.

Someone knocked on the door. "Who's there?" Greg called.

Sara popped her head in and grinned. "What's your favorite district?"

A tint of red seemed to flush Greg's cheeks. " Columbia."

Sara pushed the door open and he saw she had a wheel chair. A copy of the Rocky Horror Picture Show lay on the seat as she pushed it in. "You've been discharged, Greg," she said cheerily. "Ready to go home?"

He smiled wearily at her and let out a long sigh. "If I could jump out of this bed and hug you right now, I would." He nodded at the DVD. "What's that for?"

She shrugged casually. "Well I figured since I'd never seen this thing, we could maybe give it a shot." She looked at Nick and Grissom. "You guys wanna watch?"

"I've seen it," Nick said. "And twelve times is enough for me."

"And I never want to see it," Grissom replied. He looked at his watch. "Besides, I have to go back in an hour."

"You'll miss out on a lot!" Greg said.

Grissom smiled. "I'm sure I'll survive." He looked at Nick. "I think you have some extra hours to work too, or am I wrong?"

"Dammit, haven't they found a replacement for Mindy _yet_?" Nick whined.

Grissom's lips twitched. "It's not just that. We're still going over her old cases. Catherine and Warrick were going through them all last night. It's our turn."

Nick sighed. "I guess…" he said. They both looked at Greg, who found himself the center of attention once more as they each gave him their own unique questioning looks.

"What?" Greg asked.

"Are you going to get your ass out of that bed or not?" Sara asked.

Greg smirked. "Give me a hand, Columbia."

She held out her arm and he took it as he stumbled out of bed and she lowered him into the wheel chair. Grissom opened the door for them and Sara pushed him through, followed by Nick.

And after months of being hospitalized, Greg could finally go home.

* * *

_Somewhere in _ _Mexico__…_

He parked the convertible outside of the hotel and leaned back in his seat, grinning at his beautiful queen. Her red hair glistened in the hot Mexican sun and she beamed back at him.

"Did I ever tell you I _love_ how beautifully brilliant you are?" he said.

She smirked in reply. "You could never have gotten into that account in the Caymans without me," she replied. "Your big sister."

He leaned over and kissed her softly. "I guess that makes this incest," he said, mischievously.

She giggled and kissed him again. "I'm glad it's not really."

"I can't believe you conned my senile old man into thinking you were his dead daughter," he said, shaking his head in awe. "He gave you all the information on the account, the old bastard."

She shrugged modestly. "When you're dying, you'll believe anything," she replied.

"It was incredible how you worked him," he said. "And you actually believed I'd hang you out to dry?"

"I don't know…" she said. "How about how you betrayed your own brother like that? Not very nice of you."

"Alex has been teetering on the brink of suicide for years now," he told her. "It didn't take much to push him over the edge. This was his last chance for a new life, and after he killed Sylvia, the only person who ever really believed in him, poor baby. All I had to say was that you took off with the money and you were blaming him."

"You want to check in?"

He kissed her again and nodded excitedly. "Do I ever. I need you in that bedroom as fast as possible."

They got out of the car and entered the hotel. She strode up to the front desk like she owned the place. "Hi, we need a room."

"You have a reservation?" the clerk asked.

"Yes," she replied. "It's under Spade. Elizabeth Spade."

The clerk checked it on the computer than slid the key across the table to her. "Here you are, Mr. and Mrs. Spade. Enjoy your stay."

He took the key before she could even reached for it and smiled at her in triumph. "Oh," he said, his gray eyes never leaving her green ones. "We will."


	9. Special Features

_**EDIT:**_ DAMMIT! Thank you, necira, for pointing out that this special features section is SEVERELY LACKING IN DELETED SCENES! Find them at the end of this document.

* * *

**In This Special Features  
**Author's Commentary  
Advertisement: Smiles Incorporated  
Sneak Peak: The King of Spades  
Sneak Peak: Night Bleeds  
Deleted Scene: Greg Watches Too Much Rocky Horror

* * *

_**Author's Commentary:**_

**On Mindy: **I thoroughly enjoyed Queen of Spades when I figured out who I wanted the villain to be. Mindy was first created to be a throw-away character, but her cynical humor made me want to include her more in the story, and when Sara asks Nick in chapter two how it was possible for the villain to know of Greg's whereabouts when he was shot, it made sense that there had to be a leak somewhere, and Mindy had the perfect character for that. But I did want her to be a sort of foil character to Greg, and a potential romantic interest (in that, she and he may flirt back and forth a little bit) because in essence, they came from the same place, and like Sofia says in chapter seven, Mindy just fell a little too far a little too fast. But because both Mindy and Greg seem to have posetive, trusting qualities, they were both taken advantage of. But the important difference between Mindy and Greg is that she couldn't just laugh things off, and she couldn't ask anyone else for help. She became angry where Greg went in the opposite direction. I'm glad you liked her (if you did) and if you didn't like her, I hope it was because she was a villain you loved to hate. Out of all the original villains I've created (with the acception of the ghosts in "Fine Flowers"), Mindy has been the most human. Ryan Woodward (from "Slither") was a social reject lashing out at a society he felt had wronged him (including Nick). The Volkovs ("Collateral Damage" and "Phoenix") were the match made in hell in that they were both psychotic masochists. And Greg in "Finding Mr. Hyde" was pure, unadulterated evil, as the name would entail. Even in "Salam," whereas Hassan was just a man in mourning, the real villains were the racist kids who beat his wife to death. So I was quite happy with Mindy. I like adding a slice of humanity to my villains every now and then, and Mindy was the perfect opportunity because of her link as a CSI.  
**On the Controvertial Ending: **I let them escape to leave the opportunity for a sequel in which I would be able to possibly bring Mindy back. The main reason I was unsatisfied with it was because I felt the motive was flawed, and I was trying to tighten it up a little. But... whatever.  
**On The Potential Sequel:** It will be called "King of Spades" and it will be up for your reading pleasure in late August or early September, depending on how other projects go (namely "Night Bleeds" and "Nevada Devil"). It will be rated T.  
**On "Night Bleeds" (see below):** I'm being intentionally secretive about this story, so the summary and "preview" won't do more than maybe whet your appetite for more (which is it's intention). But you won't know much about it, and that's done on purpose, because that mystery is less humorous, and much darker than this one was. It will be rated M, and for a good reason.

* * *

ADVERTISEMENT: Smiles Incorporated**  
**

**A new era of fan fiction has dawned! Join the ranks of Smiles Incorporated in an effort to bring quality fan work into the spotlight! If you like reading good fan fiction or if you like writing it, please visit http://smilesincorporated.tripod. com (minus the space between . com) IMMEDIATELY! But what's that? You like fan art and fan videos too? Never fear! Smiles Incorporated has all the fan created material for CSI you will need... er, well not yet, but that's why we need you more than ever to build our database. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!**

* * *

Sneak Peak: King of Spades  


(Comming August/September, 200**7**-- not 200**8**. Thanks to cause.A.scene for catching the error.)

**Summary:** An old friend calling herself Elizabeth Spade breaks into Greg's appartment. When he catches her stealing food out of his fridge, at first he threatens to shoot her on sight, but by her emaciated face, he falters. Frustrated with his forgiving nature, he begrudgingly makes the woman who once tried to kill him breakfast as she tells him her story of how she came to be there. Her husband's dead, or so she says, and someone's after her too. Does Greg go against his better judgement and throw his enemy out on the street, or does he help her and thus possibly risk his own life to try and save hers?

"Freeze!" he said, pointing at the shadow in the dark. The intruder didn't seem to hear him. A little panicked, Greg tried to sound a little more assertive. "I work for the LVPD, OK, I have a gun, and I will shoot you."

The intruder closed the refrigerator door, thus extinguishing the only light Greg had to see by. "Oh please, Batman," came an annoyingly familiar voice. "You couldn't hit a stationary target two feet from your nose."

Frowning in confusion, but nor lowering the gun, Greg tentatively probed, "Mindy?"

As his eyes adjusted he saw her hair rising and falling on her shoulders. "Oh," she said. "You're just as quick as I remembered."

Greg's confused frown turned to one of irritation as he choked up on his grip on the gun. "Yeah, and you're just as bitchy," he replied. "Get the hell out of my house, or I _will_ shoot you. You have three seconds. Three. Two."

"Batman."

Greg was about to say "one" when he faltered. The way she had said that irksome nickname jarred something in him. She wasn't being cocky, or condescending. She wasn't being vicious or snide or disdainful. She was desperate. And she was scared. She wasn't insulting him. She was using her familiar, unique nickname for him to appeal to his more forgiving nature. She was pleading with him.

He kept his gun trained on her, then reached for the light, switching it on. Instantly, his kitchen was illuminated, and he saw her standing there, emaciated and bruised. She had a black eye, and she looked like she hadn't eaten in weeks. "My God, Mindy Shannon…" he whispered. "What the hell happened to you?"

* * *

Sneak Peak: Night Bleeds

**Summary:** Under harsh and lonely conditions, a darker side of Greg is revealed… An experiment.

He was hungry. No, hungry was an understatement. He was literally starving. He could feel his body begin to turn on itself as his muscles dissolved. He wasn't even dead yet, and his body was already beginning to decompose. He wondered vaguely if this is what his father went through. He hadn't seen the Rat in a long time, or so he could only guess. He had been left alone in the dark indefinitely, with nothing but the ominous word of "mirrors" hanging in his mind. What in the world could they possibly do to torture him with mirrors?

In his restless sleep, when sleep would come, he dreamed of a time before this one, when he knew sunlight, when he knew the voices of friends and family who had loved him. It was getting harder and harder to remember their faces. He had already forgotten what they sounded like. All he had were names and hazy memories. When he remembered what it was like to step out into the daylight, it was a memory of overcast skies and crime scenes. When he remembered what it was like to laugh with his friends, it was a memory of sterile labs and Blue Hawaiian coffee in the break room. He wanted to remember the sun. He wanted to remember what it felt like, to have that warmth against his skin. In his mind, he pictured heaven as a garden he could sunbathe in all day long.

Little did he know, he'd have his wish soon enough...

* * *

Deleted Scene: Greg Watches Too Much Rocky Horror

_**As stated previously, this scene was removed for its rather specific references to a cult classic film that many of you may or may not have seen and those of you who have there's a high possibility you did not like it. But here it is anyway, for all you Rocky Whores out there. This scene would have taken place at the beginning of Chapter Five "In Black And White" to aleviate some of the drama going on.**  
_

Her voice trickled into his dreams like water from a mountain stream. It was refreshing and chilling at the same time.

He blinked. She was illuminated in a soft blue glow. Her hair was silky as it fell lightly on her shoulders. She was wearing a golden top hat. Her voice echoed like they were in a cave or a large amphitheater. For some reason, Greg longed to hear her sing and have the music echo everywhere and bounce right back again to his expectant ears.

_"Can you hear me, Greg_?"

Slowly, he nodded. "Yeah, I hear you Columbia."

She blinked at him. _"Greg? It's Sara. Do you understand what I'm saying?"_

"Are we doing the time warp again?" She didn't seem to understand, which only made him more confused. "Where's Eddie?"

She sighed. _"Do you know where you are_?"

"Australia?" he guessed. He wasn't too sure. He seemed to recall wallabies being involved. For some reason he had the strangest idea that they had snuck into his head through his ears and stolen his brain. " Columbia, did the wallabies give my brain to Frank so he could make another Rocky? Because I don't wanna be a muscle man."

She turned to look over her shoulder at someone else in the room. _"He's still half asleep. He's muttering, I can barely make out what he's saying. I have no idea what he's talking about_._"_

Someone laughed. _"I do. He thinks he's in the Rocky Horror Show. I don't know where the wallabies came from though."_

He stepped into view and Greg had to grin. He was dressed in a leather jacket and his hair was slicked back like Elvis. "Hey there, Eddie. I thought you were dead."

Eddie looked at Columbia and cocked an eyebrow. _"You ever been here when he's been like this? You can't get a logical word out of him. So you just kinda have to go with it until he falls completely asleep again."_ Eddie turned back to look at Greg. _"Nah, Greggo, I'm not dead."_

Now Greg was really confused. "But they ate you," he said. "They all ate you."

_"Ah,"_ said Eddie to Columbia. _"Rocky Horror _Picture_ Show."_

_"I don't know the difference,"_ Columbia replied. _"He sounds terrible… Like his voice is made of sandpaper."_

"The wallabies are coming," Greg warned his friends. He felt that Eddie should know. "You should be careful they don't steal anymore of your brain than they already took. Make another Rocky. Make you a man. Charles Atlas style."

_"What the hell is he talking about?"_ Columbia sounded frustrated.

_"Relax… _ _Columbia__."_ Eddie snickered.

_"Nick, I don't think you should be encouraging this kind of behavior." _

_"We don't really have a choice, do we _ _Columbia__? Just go with it. We can tease him about it later."_

"So does this mean we're in the scene before you die?" Greg asked. "Where's Frank with the chainsaw? Brad and Janet? Oh my God, where's Dr. Scott, Eddie, where's Dr. Scott!" Greg began to panic. He hadn't seen Dr. Scott in a long time, and was beginning to fear the good doctor had abandoned him.

_"Dr. Scott is working really hard on a way to get you back home, Greggo."_

"Dr. Scott is going to get me out of here…?" Greg didn't understand. Was that even possible? "But I want to go back to Transylvania with Riff Raff and Magenta."

_"OK, this is probably one of his stranger delusions, right?"_ Columbia sounded worried.

_"Actually," _Eddie replied with a laugh. _"He's sticking pretty much to the script of the movie… With the exception of the wallabies."_

_"I think this movie would confuse the hell out of me."_

Greg yawned. He was tired again. "For what it's worth, I really don't want you to die, Eddie. Hot Patootie is like the coolest song in the entire movie."

_"I don't want you to die either, Greggo, so get some rest, OK?"_

"Are Brad and Janet gonna swing by soon?" Greg asked. "I wanna see them."

_"Uh… Warrick and Catherine?"_ Eddie guessed.

Greg grinned and laughed. "Hey…" he said slowly, playfully, as though he were talking to a very precocious child. "How do _you_ know Warrick and Catherine? You're a fictional character. Just like me."

_"Great, now he thinks he doesn't exist,"_ Columbia muttered sarcastically.

_"Oh, you just relax," _Eddie returned. _"He's just dreaming out loud is all."_

" Columbia, you were always really hot," Greg said to her. "I love how in the floor show we get to see your tits."

_"I'm… sorry?"_ Columbia looked almost affronted, but Eddie was cracking up.

"Can I have a kiss?" Greg wondered with a grin.

_"Maybe later,"_ Columbia replied, looking at the laughing Eddie skeptically.

Someone else entered the room and Greg's face lit up. "Magenta, is that you?"

The woman dressed in a maid's outfit stopped and looked from Eddie to Columbia. _"Rocky Horror again?"_

_"Am I the only one who's never seen this movie?!"_ Columbia exclaimed.

Magenta walked over to the bed Greg was lying at him and looked at him with big doe eyes. _"Greg, my name is Harriet Becker, I'm your nurse. Remember me?"_

"Of course I remember you!" Greg exclaimed. "You sing with Riff Raff in Time Warp!" Magenta rolled her eyes as she readied what looked to Greg to be a gun. Suddenly, he was nervous. "What are you going to do with that?"

_"Don't be scared,"_ she said. _"This is just something to help you sleep easier. Reduce the hallucinogenic effects of the analgesic. And when you wake up again, you might realize that we're not in Frank-N-Furter's house after all."_

Greg was nervous. "But I don't want to die!"

Magenta frowned at the gun, then looked at Greg. _"What do you think I'm holding, Greg?"_

What a stupid question. Silly Magenta, didn't she know anything about Earthly weapons? "Well I know it's no laser gun like you're used to, but it's still a gun."

She smiled softly at him as she pressed the gun against his arm. He felt a sharp prick and yelped. _"It's just a needle, Greg. No gun, laser or otherwise."_

This calmed him down a bit. Things were getting fuzzier. Darker. The Time Warp played quietly in his skull as he floated somewhere between the waking world and the landscape of dreams. He yawned again. "Goodnight, Magenta. Goodnight, Columbia and Eddie. I'll see you back in Transylvania… Don't forget to beware of the wallabies…" And with that, he fell completely asleep again.


End file.
